A Very Nice Girl

Crimp’s modest debut follows a cash-strapped London opera student who gets in a bit too deep with an older man. Anna, 24, falls for 30-something Max after he chats her up at a bar. Though they keep the relationship casual at first, Anna begins to spend more time with the cagey Max, who works in finance and reveals little about himself other than the fact that he is separated from his wife. Soon, Max sets her up in an apartment of her own and gives her money so she can quit her side jobs, and she starts blowing off lessons and rehearsals to be at his beck and call. Anna continues to drift away from her art until an audition before a panel of creepy older men traumatizes her to the point of not being able to sing at all. Crimp layers her characters with personality and crafts smart moments of humanity and observation (“there was nowhere obvious for me to stand,” Anna narrates tellingly of an awkward audition), yet the story hinges on well-worn, predictable tropes of romance, dependency, and the struggling artist. As a result, it’s too easy to see where things are headed. Crimp’s characters, while memorable, cannot escape a garden-variety plot. (Feb.)