Review: What If
Men and women cannot be friends.
According to rom coms that is. Wallace (Daniel Radcliffe) is a Brit transplant living in Toronto who's finally just getting back into the social scene after a nasty breakup. His obnoxious roommate, Allan (Adam Driver) introduces him to his cousin, Chantry (Zoe Kazan) at a party, and they hit it off. The only problem is, she has a boyfriend. She proposes friendship, but can they really just be friends when Wallace as feelings for her?
Rom coms are NOT my thing. In fact, the only reason I went to see this was because I'm a fan of Radcliffe and Kazan. Had any other actor I was impartial to been in this, I never would've went. I didn't hate it, but I did get annoyed with the rom com cliches that it checked off.
1) Boys cannot be friends with girls. Check
2) Friendzone boy is painfully awkward. Check
3) Boyfriend is a douchebag. Check
4) Friendzone flies cross country to win back girl. Check
5) Girl has a slutty friend/sister. Check
6) Jobs always complicate things. Check
It did manage to do a few things right. There were a lot of legitimate laughs, and some of the conversations Chantry and Wallace had were amusing and felt like the actors ad-libbed it all. The cast was good. Some decent advice was given, and we had convincing leads. The ending was incredibly predictable, even though I still held out hope that it would've been different. If you're into rom coms, this is probably one of the better ones out there. If you're not, well, there's still something there. A little something, anyways.
Recommended: Yes.
Grade: B-
Memorable Quote: "One thing I like about getting married is that you get to stand up in front of everyone you care about and state for the record that you believe in the best case scenario." - Nicole (Mackenzie Davis)
I like that memorable quote! I am generally not into romantic comedies either, and I have never liked Daniel Radcliffe since the Harry Potter franchise introduced him to the world at large. This sounds like one I could miss. It does sound like it had some really good moments, though.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I love that quote too. This film actually had quite a few good ones.
DeleteI definitely agree with you on your last paragraph; I loved some of the conversations Chantry and Wallace had, but this movie got painfully cheesy for me at times.
ReplyDeleteIt definitely had the cheese factor. (Especially Wallace flying to Ireland, and all the rooftop scenes)
Deleteit's so interesting that so many have pegged this as the anti-romcom when you so clearly have pointed out all its cliches.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I have no idea where that mentality is coming from. Because it had a few good jokes and everyone was a hipster? Who knows.
DeleteI stay away from most new rom coms, but I did enjoy this one. I like that Radcliffe is trying new things, and he and Kazan had good chemistry. B for me.
ReplyDeleteI do like that Radcliffe has tried so many different things after Harry Potter as well. I can really appreciate that.
DeleteI'm not the biggest fan of rom-coms either tho admittedly some are quite good, esp those done by Nora Ephron :D But I'm curious about this one mainly because of the two lead cast, esp Radcliffe.
ReplyDeleteThe leads definitely make it better. I wouldn't have seen it if not for them.
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