On his birthday, octogenarian WWII veteran Robbie (Kyle Stone) looks back on his life.

Time is flexible in Robbie's memory, like when his doorbell rings and his teenage girlfriend Ella Nova is there with a cake wishing him happy birthday. He dismisses her with an abrupt, "I can't, Elizabeth ... you're dead," and she isn't there any more as he picks up his paper. Stone flips through a picture album, remembering his lost opportunities with women in his life, when he was a young man (Robby Echo), rejected by Nova ("I'm just not ready. We aren't married.") and romancing Casey Calvert.

Before shipping out to WWII, Robbie sends Elizabeth a Dear Jane letter and she runs to see him—but he's already gone. Overseas, Robbie moons over a picture of himself with Elizabeth, not noticing (or not caring) as Ryan Driller and Katana get it on nearby. On the home front, Nova marries Michael Vegas, but rediscovers a picture of herself with Robbie and—in a riveting, wordless sequence—succumbs to depression and commits suicide by jumping off a balcony.

Back in the present, Stone takes a heart-shaped locket to Elizabeth's grave and apologizes ("I'm sorry it's taken me so long to come and visit. But not a day has gone by that I haven't missed you.") and when he sleeps, he's visited by Elizabeth, who asks him to come along with her: "I've been waiting such a long time." The youthful Robbie sits up and they go into a white netherworld. "Where are we?" he asks. "Together," she replies, and they finally get together, after all the decades. Later that night, when Robbie's niece and her husband arrive to celebrate his birthday with him ... even though the ending was telegraphed a few minutes before, it still is a blow, and the final shot is heartbreaking.

Screenwriter/director Stormy Daniels continues to build entire worlds out of a few well-chosen sentences of dialogue. Most of the period simulations ring true and Daniels builds a full story with fleshed-out characters and five sex scenes in a trim, economical 92 minutes. Also, Jake Jacobs and Andre Madness contribute evocative cinematography, and kudos to editor Dick Chibbles, whose addition of close-ups of clocks and the sound of ticking in many scenes makes time itself a character.

And a big nod to Kyle Stone for an acting performance of a lifetime.