In “The Broken Hearts Gallery,” written and directed by Natalie Krinsky, upbeat New Yorker Lucy (Geraldine Viswanathan) is a collector or a hoarder, depending on whom you ask.
After every relationship, Lucy keeps souvenirs. Clothes . . . gifts . . . an ex-boyfriend’s retainer. The objects are all over her room, piling up, and she can’t bring herself to part with them.
When forced, though, after her most recent terrible breakup, she creates a gallery of these keepsakes. She pins one seemingly worthless item to a wall in a hotel, and other people join her, letting go of symbols of love lost, telling their breakup stories along the way.
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The romantic comedy brings together a pack of characters who help Lucy with her curatorial mission. The cast includes Phillipa Soo (”Hamilton”), Utkarsh Ambudkar (”Brockmire”), Bernadette Peters, and a love interest in Dacre Montgomery (”Stranger Things”).
Krinsky, 38, whose writing credits include “Gossip Girl” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” is one of the first directors to have a film debut in local theaters since they’ve re-opened (it comes out Sept. 11). She talked about her own breakup artifacts, her heroine, and what it’s like to make her directorial debut during a pandemic.
Q. You made a romantic comedy rooted in reality, but watching it now, it also feels like magic, because of the pandemic. Crowded scenes in New York seem surreal. The scene where your two leads walk a couch around the city looks impossible — and so much more romantic.
A. As [someone who spent] my early 20s years in New York, I always look at it through rose-colored glasses, as this magical, untouchable place. I think that in this moment, that feeling is so amplified. Now there’s a nostalgia to it that I never could have predicted. It’s very strange. I hope we can get back to that place where we can pack 150 people into a party, or two people can be outside carrying a couch mask-less to their apartment.
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Q. You have an actress [Viswanathan] who must be charming and relatable and who anchors just about every scene.
A. Geraldine . . . I mean, I love her like she came out of my own body. I had seen her in “Blockers.” I had seen her and “Hala.” I knew that she had this incredible range. There was something about her that felt like a Bridget Jones and Sally Albright [from “When Harry Met Sally”], but for today. One of the things I think is so fierce about [the character Lucy] is that as women, sometimes some of the images we see are telling us that we have to be a certain way in order to be loved. And Lucy is asking the world to love her not in spite of her weirdness, but because of it. Geraldine just dove into that idea and has an optimism about her, and is an incredible comedic actress but can also access emotion on a dime.
Q. There is a real Museum of Broken Relationships in Croatia. I was able to visit the US outpost of that museum in Los Angeles a few years ago. Did the real landmark inspire the story?
A. I was in a moment in my life not unlike Lucy in the film. I was young — because this movie, it has been 10 years in the making. I was in my mid-20s. I had moved to New York, I had broken up with a boyfriend, I had been fired from my job and I was moving apartments. I was clearing out parts of my life. I had actually heard of the Museum of Broken Relationships as I was trying to parse out — like, what were the things I was going to take with me? What were the things I was going to leave behind? And I just thought to myself, that’s such a relatable thing: that you can come across an object or a song or a scent, and it just immediately takes you back to that moment in your life. How do you truly let go of those things? That’s where the little grain of an idea started.
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Q. People are seeing more movies at home and there’s less expectation to see them in theaters. What is it like to have your directorial debut released right now?
A. Sony is distributing the movie in theaters and drive-ins where it has been deemed safe, and I think that there is something really magical if people are comfortable [with] the communal experience. Eventually it’ll be on VOD, down the road. However people come to it, however people access it, I’m happy that it gets to them.
Q. Do you have your own breakup souvenirs? Anything that could go in a gallery?
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A. There’s two funny relationship mementos I have. I dated this guy in New York in my early 20s — and now when I tell the story, I’m like, ugh, I sound like a real thief — but we used to make it a challenge to steal silverware from restaurants or bars we went to. I do have a set of mismatched silverware from that relationship. And then, [from] another very short-lived relationship, I have a tooth-whitening tray that I, for some reason, held on to and have never gotten rid of.
Interview has been edited and condensed. Meredith Goldstein, who writes the Love Letters column, can be reached at Meredith.Goldstein@Globe.com.