Sophie Go’s Lonely Hearts Club

Lim (Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop) treads well-worn ground in this tender if derivative tale of a matchmaker and her demanding parents. Sophie Go has returned from Shanghai to her hometown of Toronto to establish her matchmaking business. However, her debut is ruined by her mother, who reveals that Sophie was expelled from matchmaking school after a tragic incident involving a client. Desperate, Sophie offers to matchmake her neighbors, a group of male seniors known as the Old Ducks, in the hope that success with a difficult demographic will draw customers. Meanwhile, Sophie’s parents apply constant emotional and financial pressure. Lim offers promising forays into the psychology of love and intergenerational toxic parenting, but ultimately sinks into the age-old debate over self-happiness versus filial piety, with protracted instances of Sophie’s constant desire to please and placate and a requisite showdown that feels insufficiently cathartic. The saving grace is Sophie’s relationship with the Old Ducks, whose idiosyncrasies and genuine affection for Sophie counterbalance some of the tropes, such as the serendipitous way each Duck finds his mate and the forbidden romance between Sophie and another client. Still, fans of Lim’s earlier works should find in this another welcome match. Agent: Jenny Bent, Bent Agency. (Aug.)