By Jason Osiason

Who knew turning The Place Beyond the Pines into a romantic comedy could feel this electric. Roofman takes a story that could have been bleak and turns it into something surprisingly tender. It is a love story about people who cannot stop making the wrong choices. Romantic, vulnerable, heartbreaking, and sweet all at once.

The film follows Jeffrey Manchester, played by Channing Tatum, a man trying to rebuild his life after everything goes sideways. He is a father, a dreamer, and a survivor who slips into a double life that mixes crime, hope, and delusion. He breaks into fast food chains through the roof, hides out in a toy store, and somehow finds love in the process. It sounds ridiculous on paper, yet the movie believes in him so fully that you do too. Tatum gives his most soulful work yet. He plays Manchester like a man whose heart is still trying to do the right thing even as his body keeps doing the opposite. It is the kind of performance that makes you root for him while shaking your head at every decision.

Kirsten Dunst brings quiet ache to Leigh, the woman who sees the good in him before the world does. Their chemistry carries the film. They feel like two people who would absolutely fall in love at the worst possible time. Their scenes together glow with longing and exhaustion, as if love itself is something they have to steal moments for.

The film works because it never laughs at them. It laughs with them. It gives space to the absurdity of hiding out in a Toys R Us but never forgets that it is coming from pain. The tone walks a careful line between whimsy and ruin. One moment you are watching a playful montage of small victories, the next you are holding your breath as everything threatens to collapse. The humor makes the heartbreak sharper.

What I love is how Roofman uses crime as language for love. Every break-in, every escape, every lie feels like another way of saying I am trying to survive. It is about how people turn to fantasy when reality refuses to make space for them. There is a strange innocence in how he tries to create a home in the least likely place. You can feel that same melancholy pulse that ran through The Place Beyond the Pines, but here it’s wrapped in a softer light. The tragedy is still there, but so is the possibility of grace.

The cinematography leans into this contradiction. Bright aisles, glowing toy displays, a sense of nostalgia so thick you can almost smell the plastic. The world around him looks pure and inviting, yet he is always one step from exposure. The production design turns these familiar childhood places into something haunting. It is Cianfrance doing what he does best, building emotional worlds out of ordinary spaces.

What makes this film sing is how it balances romance and ruin. It never chooses between them because both are true. Love makes you reckless. Shame makes you hide. Roofman is about how those impulses collide. The writing is sharp but gentle. The score hums under the dialogue like a heartbeat that never slows down.

Channing Tatum pours his whole bruised soul into this role. He strips away his charm until what’s left is something raw and trembling. It feels like a total career reinvention. You see the comedy, the pain, the yearning, and you realize he has been waiting for a part like this. One of the performances of the year. Oscar nominate him, cowards.

By the end, the movie leaves you warm and wrecked. It is about second chances and the strange ways people look for redemption when the world has already written them off. It’s messy, funny, sad, and achingly sincere. A romantic tragedy that just happens to live inside a toy store. I walked out smiling and heartbroken, which feels exactly right. [B+]