Steven James Creazzo’s “Letting Life In” tells the story of a young cancer survivor named Sarah (Anne W. Griffin) who takes a job as a housekeeper for a reclusive writer named Michael (Patrick Hall). However, when she travels across the U.S. and shows up for the job, Michael wants to send her home. It turns out his deceased mother hired Sarah without his knowledge. He’s horribly agoraphobic and hasn’t left the house in 16 years.

Sarah, not wanting to lose the work, demands to stay. Throughout the film, her spirited nature teaches Michael to come out of his shell. Inevitably, the two fall in love, but when Sarah’s cancer comes back, the two must deal with being torn apart.

Independent film is tough. I known this for a fact because I’ve spend several years working in independent film.

And when I say “independent film,” I’m not talking about the $10 million studio-purchased indie film like “Pulp Fiction” or any number of star vehicles that plow through Sundance each year. I’m talking about the hard core, grass roots independent films that are most likely shot on digital video and financed by credit cards.

To make matters worse, drama is really tough to do in independent film. Horror (the exploitative kind) is pretty easy, and so is comedy. But a drama is really hard to pull off with a cast of community theatre actors and a crew working for food on the weekends.

I guess the reason for all my bellyaching here is that I wanted to like this movie more. I feel for the director. I’ve done my fair share of indie film, and I know what it’s like to put something together that is nowhere near the quality to compete with studio films and celebrity vehicle indie films.

The biggest problem with “Letting Life In” is its length. There’s really only about 20 minutes of story that’s stretched out with countless montage segments. I understand the desire to pad out the story to help show time passing, but there are other (better) filmmaking techniques that do this. Even if Creazzo would have put in only one or two music montages, that would have worked. However, as it stands, there are montages for everything from walking in the woods to painting a picture.

The characters are not unlikable. Patrick is a bit of a whiner, but that’s the character that was built. Anne W. Griffith is very cute, although she’s not utilizes enough to be adorable. She’s not a bad actor, although Patrick Hall tends to deliver his lines like a theatre actor, with a little too much projection than is needed for the camera.

Creazzo and his crew are competent and can put together the imagery. In fact, on the screener I received, there was a trailer for an action piece that looked like it might be interesting. Drama may not be Creazzo’s forte, but he can string together a story.