Roadie (2011)

It's here, in a keenly captured Forest Hills, Queens, land of low-lit bars and manicured lawns, that Roadie soars as a gently comic drama about living the dream - or trying to.

Michael Cuesta's perfectly-pitched indie captures the pain of arrested development with so much empathy and insight, you can't help but root for the unmoored, overgrown adolescent at its center.

A lot of what takes place in Roadie feels overly familiar, and the film could have been a wallow in pathos except for the performances, especially that of Eldard.

Roadie features some wonderfully evocative music out of its characters' collective past (local legends the Good Rats, for instance) but like Jimmy himself, it takes a bit of a push to get the picture going, which it gets, both emotionally and dramatically, thanks largely to its ensemble.

Eldard, with eyes projecting adolescent vulnerability and a body lost to awkward midlife chub, is enough to redeem Cuesta's indie commonplaces.