Keep The Lights On

The quietly gifted indie director Ira Sachs (Forty Shades of Blue) has made an autobiographical movie so candid and searing it redefines him as an artist. In Keep the Lights On, Erik (Thure Lindhardt), a documentary filmmaker who lives off family money, falls for Paul (Zachary Booth), a literary lawyer he meets on a phone hookup line. Paul is sexy and thoughtful. He’s also an addict who disappears for days at a time. Sachs traces their relationship from 1998 to 2007, and what’s remarkable is that everything in the movie — how the New York apartments look, the inside glimpses at the life of a filmmaker, the way enabling becomes a form of romance — is as raw and real as the most live-wire memoir. Lindhardt, sweet and childish and achingly vulnerable, gives a stunning performance.A