A crushing sense of despondency is made all the more unbearable by a fleeting moment of hope in this slice of sidewalk life from Ramin Bahrani. Having lost his wife and been separated from his son, Pakistani singer Ahmad Razvi is saving towards buying his own coffee kiosk to make a twilight living in New York.
However, he’s recognised from his days as a one-hit wonder by yuppie Charles Daniel Sandoval, who promises him a nightclub gig before moving in on Leticia Dolera, the Spanish news vendor who is also all alone in the big city. The performances and storyline are pretty perfunctory. But the nocturnal images of Razvi hauling his metallic cart through traffic that barely notices his existence eloquently encapsulate the émigré experience.