Talents (2015)

Max Brenner has been working at Playhouse Cinemas for longer than he'd care to admit. He's in a stable relationship and is currently tinkering with his long-gestating passion project - a short film whose subject has escaped him - but his employment at the theatre, and the frustration it has caused him, remain a constant. Working alongside him is Gunner Dawson, a naive, optimistic man whose heart is reeling from a nasty divorce, but who will nevertheless not be discouraged. Max's relationship with his former best friend Chas - a once-promising child actor whose future vanished into a haze of pot smoke - is also at a crossroads. And then there's Emilie: the mysterious girl he keeps seeing on the subway during his daily commute. Over the course of ten episodes, these four interrelated characters will search for love, purpose and connection all set against the backdrop of an L.A. you don't often see in films or television. It's also a changing city: film has moved to digital and although many of the characters are holding on to tragedies and milestones from their pasts, it would appear that the world has moved on without them. Their fumbling quest for meaning in the world is emblematic of the myth-making in our own lives: how we view our own small problems as life-changing events, and how we often see ourselves as "the stars of our own movies". "Talents" is the story of love lost and found again, the power of dreams and coming of age, no matter how old you are.