I love a good unlikely friends story and there’s nothing more unlikely than a mother bonding with her daughter’s goofball ex-boyfriend. Filmmakers Dane Clark and Linsey Stewart take this concept to hilarious and unexpectedly poignant places in Suze, a slightly uneven Canadian comedy starring the always pitch-perfect Michaela Watkins.

Watkins plays Susan, a single mom, still reeling after finding her husband (Sandy Jobin-Bevans) and his mistress (Sorika Wolf) in their pool several years before. As a result, she clings to her daughter Brooke (Sara Waisglass), who is about to head off to college. Brooke knows how to manipulate her mom and, despite promising to spend time with her this summer after lying to her about attending school at home, spends every waking minute with her friends and slacker-musician boyfriend, Gage (Charlie Gillespie, Totally Killer). Susan or “Suze” as Gage calls her, does not like him and begs Brooke to break up with him.

When Brooke finally does all the way from her cushy school in Toronto, Gage tries to take his own life by jumping off the town’s water tower. Clark and Stewart don’t play Gage’s mental health issues for laughs and instead use it as a moment of bonding between the film’s leads. When Susan finds out about it from Brooke, she heads to visit him and is eventually roped into watching him by his absent father (Aaron Ashmore). As she forces him into a more structured life, he, albeit predictably, pushes her to find a life outside of her daughter.

Michaela Watkins knows how to be the slightly bitchy, ball-busting, mother figure but she’s never played it as a lead. This wider scope gives her more to do and more chance for Suze’s humanity to shine through. When her character is faced with Gage’s mental health issues, her performance stays grounded, going through a whole subtle range of realistic emotions without going over the top. Her impeccable comedic timing is still on point, but she gets to stretch more dramatically, something she has been doing in projects like You Hurt My Feelings and the Theranos scandal miniseries The Dropout.

Charlie Gillespie plays Gage as a loveable dummy and god, is he fun to watch. With his long hair, shirt off most of the time, and the way his voice goes up at the end of a sentence, he’s the perfect definition of a himbo — until you remember why Gage is at Suze’s house. A sweet and understandable vulnerability underneath his performance indicates the character’s larger mental health issues at play. By the end, you, like Suze, just want the best for him and to get the help he needs. 

Together, Gillespie and Watkins create this enticing push-and-pull energy you can’t stop watching. If they had a podcast, I would definitely be listening every day. While the Suze plot is somewhat predictable and doesn’t always know what tone to hit, Watkins and Gillespie are an expected comedic duo worth watching again and again.

Suze is available On Demand. Watch the trailer below.