Love Comes Lately 2007

Max Kohn, an elderly Jewish writer and Austrian émigré, lives in New York City with an overactive mind that keeps him in a state of perpetual confusion. He is a successful author of short stories who clings to the old-fashioned craft of typing on a typewriter, convinced that this is the only proper way to write. Surrounded by attention from several women who try to seduce him, he spends much of his time with a fellow worrier, Reisel, whose companionship sharpens his nerves and sharpens his wit in equal measure.

On a speaking trip to Hanover, Max begins editing his latest story—a wild Miami-set tale about a retiree who tumbles into a string of trouble. It doesn’t take long before the line between fiction and life starts to blur, and Max finds that his own written words seem to reach out and take form in the world around him. The sensation is thrilling and unsettling, drawing him deeper into a nightscape where imagination and reality mingle until they are almost the same thing, and the consequences feel surprisingly immediate.

As Max grapples with this creeping fusion of author and subject, he meets with Rosalie, a burned-out former student with whom he shares a charged, mutual attraction. The encounter deepens the pull of his vivid fiction and nudges him toward decisions that feel both dangerous and irresistible. Soon after, while en route to Springfield for another unwanted speaking engagement, he discovers that he has misplaced the speech he prepared, a small setback that mirrors the larger disarray swallowing his life.

With a string of small, almost luminous adventures guiding him, Max decides to write a new story drawn directly from the arc of his recent experiences. He crafts a protagonist named Harry—the thinly veiled stand-in for himself—using his real-world quandaries as raw material. The narrative becomes a vehicle for reframing his confusion, his fears, and his desires, turning his everyday reality into something artistic and finally hopeful. Through this process, Max navigates a landscape of romance, ambiguity, and an unsolved murder, all while wrestling with the powerful pull of his own imagination and the fragile boundary between writer and character.