Maladaptive

Writer-director Adam Chin's romantic comedy Maladaptive mixes mock documentary footage--in which the main characters are asked to describe their first experience with love--with a straightforward narrative. As the story begins, Emily (Roxana Ortega) a pretty twentysomething struggling actress, is telling her older married friends, Abby (Velina Brown) and Graham (Graham Cowley) about her new boyfriend, Stuart (Dominic Sahagun), who is still in high school. Abby and Graham frequently joke about Emily's tumultuous love life, but unbeknownst to Abby, Graham has been nursing a powerful crush on her young friend for some time. Eventually, he reveals he arranges to meet Emily in private, and professes his love for her, explaining that the passion is gone from his relationship with Abby. Meanwhile, Emily's ex-boyfriend, Roger (Mark Romyn), a cynical, burned-out theater critic with a penchant for tearing apart every play he sees, becomes infatuated with Clare (Jenny Lord), an imperiously beautiful woman he meets at the park. Maladaptive was shown at the 2005 Asian American International Film Festival, presented by Asian Cinevision.