This film might be a low budget independent, but it is full of themes, ideas, and styles that demonstrate these filmmakers are ready for a bigger stage (or at least a bigger budget). It has a unique voice that should resonate and be familiar (even if sometimes uncomfortably so) with a modern, multicultural society. It does not make its influences obvious, but the details are telling. These are "third-culture" kids, grown up and facing the early edge of a midlife, and marital, crisis.
Much of the plot is too common these days, and therefore something many can relate to: financial troubles, job insecurity, and finding solace (and friendship?) in a computer screen. Any viewer might recognize part of the plot, or a character, in themselves, someone they know, or from the cover of a newspaper, but there are unique additions that might slip by unnoticed. There are oblique references to a religion that might not be very familiar to many, except those who know of a West End musical built upon it. These details give it a voyeuristic feel, as if spying on neighbours who don't quite explain everything (as some films are apt to do).
A low budget does not have to mean a plain approach. The film has some nice stylistic twists, such as changing the cinematography for when the computer is used (though then later the fish-eye lens comes up again in another setting that did not make as good a use for it; sometimes less is more). Looking at their lives from a fishbowl via the webcam point of view was interesting and a good fit. From the wall during a comic scene, it did not fit from the same perspective of restriction and solitude. The 80s music that popped up in the score was an odd twist – it took me back to a time when romantic comedies of a similar sort were more common, but then with a mix between that and the accelerated-motion / time lapse technique that harked back to the days of silent film comedies. It was a long sequence, and very much created a pastiche of styles including a smart dig at TV game shows. (Did I write pastiche? Sorry, I took a university humanities class on "American Film" and it was bound to get regurgitated at some point in my life.)
The film is not just something for those of us facing midlife crises, economic uncertainty, or wives who don't appreciate us (just kidding, honey!), but works on other levels and can appeal to the whole family with its classic comedy sequences. In fact, even my daughters liked it, with one giving it her best praise: "It was funny. Monkey funny." I can't top that, even if I were to use the word pastiche again.