Lost Everything is a difficult film to follow. Not because it’s poorly directed or particularly badly written, but because there are a lot of characters. And we know what your thinking: “plenty of films have lots of characters, I mean, The Magnificent Seven had at least five characters”. The problem is, though, that every character has their own individual storyline, some of which are only tangentially related to each other, meaning that while this film is overflowing with story, there’s nothing resembling a plot.

At my count, there are seven main characters: Jay (Dittman), a detective investigating Orlando (Raphael Sanchez) and maybe trying to kill him later, who falls in love with Alana (Kelts); Orlando, an antique shop owner who’ is the boyfriend of Christian (Leif Holt) and Alana’s business partner; Alana, who in addition to being a business partner and a love interest is also dealing with a psychotic ex; and Christian, who’s dad is a evangelical christian desperate for his son to not be gay. That’s one (actually several) of the main story-lines.

But there’s also: David (Lupo), who works at a hotel bar with Christian; Brian (Mark Whittington), who’s a massive Hollywood film star desperate to hide the fact that he’s gay from the press, despite taking David as a lover; there’s Michelle (Anna Lopez), a prostitute who’s taken on as an actress so she can be presented as Brian’s new lady-love. That’s another of the major story-lines. We haven’t gone into detail about the journalist, the evil private investigator/hit-woman/pimp, or Christian’s homophobic dad, but they’re all massively important as well.

The film really does feel like a soap opera. Aside from the fact that it’s got no central protagonist and want to give every character plenty of screen time, often at the expense of the pacing, there’s the feeling of drama infused into every scene that feels a bit wearying after a while. Everything’s a bit fraught and emotional, although it’s to the cast’s credit that they manage to pull it off without coming across as too silly. And the whole thing suddenly turns thriller at the end, with gunfights and murders which are certainly a twist, but not one that really keeps up the tone of the film.

Overall, it’s not a bad two hours to spend watching a bit of relationship drama if that’s the kind of thing you’re into, and if you can really get on board with the characters, it’s easy to ignore a lot of the technical faults. Unfortunately, Lost Everything doesn’t make that as easy as it could be.