One was the intense discomfort Michael Cera felt having his relationship under the scrutiny of the camera. I understood that emotion directly.
Secondly I was struck by the fact that Charlyne felt that she was supposed to feel love for Michael and she didn't which caused an enormous amount of guilt. It's like she felt a draw towards social scripting with a sense that love was something she was supposed to be feeling and she couldn't find her place in the script. She was talking to so many people in the film who did follow the love script and it seems to me as if it further implanted the idea that love was something she was supposed to be experiencing. I am struck by how she felt that she failed by not finding love when she felt it was supposed to happen.
I don't see their relationship as being conceptual but I do see it as being scripted, so I wonder if there is any difference between the two? These two are most definitely less accessible than Susan and Arin, but perhaps I'll reach out to one or both of them as well.
See the film and let me know what you think.
The thing that's missing is weeping. Somewhere, at some point, even in angry or combative public displays (which also seem to be normative for separations, etc), there is weeping by at least one party. Weeping and utter heartbreak...
You're right though I was trying to stay away from cliche. We talked about crying and I tried to shoot photos of myself crying but they just looked stupid.