Most people have probably never heard of this Daniel Radcliffe-starring indie romantic comedy, and that’s because it narrowly falls through the cracks of most “on the radar” criteria. It’s too small to be considered a mainstream release, and the reviews aren’t good enough to make it an art house hit. Some might say you’re better off not seeing it, and although I think the film is more mediocre than outright bad, it’s hard to disagree that you won’t be missing much if you skip it.
What Works: So Radcliffe plays a British guy living in Toronto (I thought it was NYC since so many of the locales are what movies “set in” NYC actually use) who meets the perfect girl for him (Zoe Kazan) but she’s got a boyfriend…a five-year boyfriend…a boyfriend who might propose to her but hasn’t yet.
Now this could have been a great, realistic set-up to explore an all-too-familiar situation a lot of people find themselves in, but Radcliffe and Kazan’s characters are just a little too self-consciously “quirky” to reveal many universal truths. They’re both charming enough, but either of them needed just a little bit more of the primal force that secondary couple Adam Driver and Mackenzie Davis possess in spades.
What Doesn’t: The impulsive sidekick characters are supposed to show us what following your heart looks like, but after awhile, it’s hard not to want to follow them around instead. Plus, Kazan’s boyfriend (played by the always tedious Rafe Spall) is the thinnest pencil sketch of a character. The film never shows us the deep connection with each other that keeps her from pursuing Radcliffe, and even he gets a more interesting romantic “what if” scenario in the form of Oona Chaplin. So for a while Radcliffe/Kazan become the third most interesting romantic possibility in their own movie.
Soon, the self-conscious quirk of most of the characters felt forced, and it’s jarring that so many of the characters in this movie speak exactly the same way—-believe it or not, millenials don’t really talk about eating our own poop that much, nor would a co-worker speak as candidly to you as your best friend.
What I Would Have Done Differently: There’s a great movie waiting to be made about a guy who falls for a girl with a boyfriend, and is desperate to escape the friend zone but wonders about the morality of his sneaky tactics…one day, I hope somebody makes that movie.