Kevin Kershaw is a divorced man around 50 years old with a son from whom he drifted away and an ex-wife who needed to get away from him. He works joylessly in an insurance company office, accepting,  rejecting and challenging insurance claims by their policy holders. He does not have any real friends and he has lost his spunk to the point where he is considering ending it all.

One day, by pure coincidence, he finds a video shop in an out of  the way alley. Yes, in 2025, when we all stream Netflix, there is a shop full of VHS tapes. Kevin walks inside and gets to know the shopkeeper, an old and mysterious gentleman named Marty. He pulls out a VHS tape with Kevin’s name on it and gives it to him. There is a viewing room in the back of the shop with a small TV and an aging VHS player.

To his surprise, the short video is about Kevin himself when he was a child, showing him in scenes with his late mother. The shots were taken about his life where nobody was there to tape them at the time. It’s impossible, magical, but there it was. He soon finds out that there may be more tapes in future days, if he bothers to come back. And of course, he does.

The Last Stop Video Shop is a very slow moving story about a very boring life. For a while I found it hard to read, but it picked up the pace as it went along. There were eventually some uplifting experiences, as Kevin took the lessons from the videos seriously and made incremental improvements, which not only shaped his life, but those around him that the cared for.

2.5 stars