How entertaining? ★★★☆☆
Thought provoking? ★☆☆☆☆ 18 August 2014
This article is a review of WHAT IF. |
“You totally killed my sex-nacho high,” Allan (Adam Driver) to Wallace (Daniel Radcliffe)
How many times has a romantic-comedy/drama started saying something interesting about relationships and then bottled it for the unrealistically conventional? Answer: Almost always. For every ONCE or 500 DAYS OF SUMMER or THE BREAK-UP or A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT, there is practically everything else. A foul-mouthed modern update of WHEN HARRY MET SALLY is how the beguiling first half plays out; then tired genre clichés kick in, the heart sinks, and the humour gland stops squeezing out laughter juice (don’t get caught up in my complex medical terminology).
How many times has a romantic-comedy/drama started saying something interesting about relationships and then bottled it for the unrealistically conventional? Answer: Almost always. For every ONCE or 500 DAYS OF SUMMER or THE BREAK-UP or A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT, there is practically everything else. A foul-mouthed modern update of WHEN HARRY MET SALLY is how the beguiling first half plays out; then tired genre clichés kick in, the heart sinks, and the humour gland stops squeezing out laughter juice (don’t get caught up in my complex medical terminology).
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What’s so galling about the end result is that the cast are effortlessly likeable. Refreshingly there are no villains, reflecting that matters of the heart are not so clear-cut. Radcliffe reveals an engaging everyman leading man, which would surely meet Tom Hanks’ approval. Heartbroken on a roof is where we find him, finally deleting the voicemail of his cheating ex, Megan (Sarah Gadon) – it’s taken a year to reach this point. An emotional crisis is looming for Wallace:
- He works a wrist-slittingly dull office job as a computer software manual writer, after quitting medical school, to put distance in from the cheater that ripped his heart out.
- Penurious, Wallace is forced to live in the attic of his sister’s house. (At least it’s not a broom cupboard under the stairs. *Am getting my coat*)
- And of course, his love life is dead on arrival.
Magnetic fridge tiles spelling “Love is stupid” is how Wallace starts to bond at a Toronto house party with Chantry (Zoe Kazan) – intelligent and witty, the hope of avoiding a twee leading lady initially bares fruit; well until that fruit is squished and rubbed in our faces – you see Chantry is an animator who sees her fairy creation when she’s having an emotional down day. Measurers of quirk will need to bring their scales. Then the filmmakers add in an out of place cancer backstory for a parent. Kazan is immensely winnable sans crude character traits designed to illicit sympathy. Depth/meaning it does not give.
Stealing the film, in a tour de force comedy sidekick role, is GIRLS’ Adam Driver, the connection that brings Wallace and Chantry into the same orbit. The latter is his cousin, and the former his best bud. Generic rom-coms have the add-water-to-reveal-zany-supporting-relief, but at least hysterical gusto is the mode that Driver’s Allan and Megan Park’s Dalia are infused.
‘Can men and women be just friends?’ might have been the question asked, had Wallace not quickly become besotted. Instead, WHAT IF wonders for Chantry, less interestingly, whether she should gamble what she has. Anticlimactic then, though, admittedly, hilarious scatological discussions should keep ennui at bay.
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