The official synopsis of the writer-director James Litchfield’s darkly playful black comedy and relationship drama informs us that Alphabet Lane centres on a couple who “lose control of a joke about imaginary friends”. When I first read that, I thought: what a great premise! And then: how on earth can that be fleshed out into a feature-length film?
Litchfield has made a very good fist of it, pushing language and characterisation into intriguingly off-centre territory, using an innocuous dinner-table invention as a kind of conversational MacGuffin. It’s the spark for a story about a made-up conceit that gathers momentum, takes on a life of its own and ultimately slips beyond the grasp of its creators, who become both liberated and entangled by their web of fabrications.
