BEFORE: Well, it's been a week - I can't really say it's been a consistent week for movies, or a great week, but it's definitely been a week. I called last week "Wedding Week" because there was a wedding in nearly every movie, well except for Valentine's Day, oddly enough. Somebody got married in "Kiss Me Goodbye", "Queen Bees", "Love, Wedding, Marriage", "Ticket to Paradise" and "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3". Now that's not to say that there weren't any weddings THIS week, like somebody definitely got hitched in "How to Deal", but that topic just hasn't been the main focal point of this week. If anything, this week's films have been about high-school or college-age (or maybe just past college age) figuring stuff out, noticing all the chaos of relationships all around them, and wondering if good things or bad things are in store for them once they take that step and launch into that relationship they've been considering.
What, too nebulous of a concept? Too heavy, man? Sorry that things haven't been all that cut and dried this week, but, you know, love is complicated. You really have to think about it, some people get hurt and don't recover for years, because love is a dangerous game, and the only way to avoid the painful parts is to not play the game at all, and that's no fun. You gotta risk it for the biscuit, and no risk, no reward. Also, this has secretly been "Filmed in Canada" week all along, with a few films having the greater Toronto area filling in for some unnamed American city. Don't believe me? "Angel Eyes" was set in Chicago, but it was filmed in Toronto. "Maudie" was set in Nova Scotia but filmed in Newfoundland and Labrador. OK, so "The DUFF" was shot in Atlanta and "Then Came You" in Kingston, NY, but "How to Deal" filmed in Toronto and Hamilton, and tonight's film is both set in Toronto AND was filmed there. So four films this week are imports, and here I thought we had a tariff system in place that was supposed to prevent this.
Also, several films this week had two different names, I guess for release in different countries. You may have noticed that the poster for "A Brilliant Young Mind" had the alternate title "X + Y" on it, also "Then Came You" was called "Departures" in the U.K., which, sure I get the double meaning, airports and funerals. Today's film was titled "What If" in America, but in some countries it was released as "The F Word". I guess we all know what "F" word they were referring to - but maybe it was referring to the word "friend", it's possible...
Ennis Esmer carries over from "How to Deal", and here's the line-up for Monday, 2/24, Day 24 of TCM's "31 Days of Oscar". Just 7 days left...
Best Documentary Winners and Nominees:
6:45 am "The Battle of Midway" (1942)
7:15 am "Resisting Enemy Interrogation" (1944)
8:30 am "The Sea Around Us" (1952)
9:45 am "The Times of Harvey Milk" (1984)
11:30 am "Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt" (1989)
1:00 pm "Harlan County U.S.A. (1976)
3:00 pm "Freedom on My Mind" (1994)
5:00 pm "When We Were Kings" (1996)
6:30 pm "For All Mankind" (1989)
Oscar Worthy Women in Danger:
8:00 pm "Suspicion" (1941)
10:00 pm "Psycho" (1960)
12:00 am "Gaslight" (1944)
2:00 am "Wait Until Dark" (1967)
4:00 am "Night Must Fall" (1937)
I was at 113 seen out of 266, and while I'm great at watching current docs, I suck at watching old, Oscar-worthy ones. Like I watch a month's worth of docs every year, but usually about rock stars and film stars and once in a while sports legends, but that's just not what gets nominated.
I've seen just another 5 out of Monday's 14 - "When We Were Kings", "Suspicion", "Psycho", "Gaslight" and "Wait Until Dark". I'm much better at watching Hitchcock movies, after all.
SO now 118 seen out of 280 takes me to 42.1%.
THE PLOT: Wallace, who is burned out after a string of failed relationships, forms an instant bond with Chantry, who lives with her longtime boyfriend. Together, they puzzle out what it means if your best friend is also the love of your life.
AFTER: It's just a basic love triangle tonight, which seems simple compared to some of the goings-on around here this February - but this film tried very hard to be the ULTIMATE love triangle movie. Like, really getting into what that means, the logistics of that all, how do you form a friendship with someone that you might consider to be a good romantic partner for you, except for the fact that they're in a committed relationship. Should you give up, because that seems like they're solidly taken, and move on with your life, or should you hang around and be friends with them, and then take advantage of whatever bad fortune might come along and break up that other relationship, or should you take an active role in breaking them up, so you can be happy and be with who you want?
You can feel it when med-school drop-out Wallace is confiding in his best friend, Allan - they're debating the possible next steps when you find yourself attracted to someone who's in a committed relationship. It's almost like the screenwriters debating over which direction the plot should take. Wallace has a pretty solid friendship with Chantry, but he wants more - if he actively breaks up Chantry and Ben, then he's an asshole, and Chantry may resent whatever he did to break them up, so she may not be receptive to taking her relationship further with Wallace. If he sticks around and just acts like Chantry's best friend, waiting for them to break up naturally or for something else to go wrong, then he seems like he's conniving, and also not truly her friend if he had this ulterior motive all along. And if he just makes a move on Chantry without any warning, it will seem like it's coming out of nowhere, also he'd be very selfish to make a move on a friend who's with someone else. So, which is the worse sin, and which action, if any, should he take? Yeah, that's a big dilemma, almost of Seinfeldian proportions, and it's not clear whether ANY of those actions will result in climbing out of the Friend Zone and turning Chantry from a friend into a lover.
The safest road would probably be to just continue being friends, and not tip your hand in any way, but keep your eyes and ears open, looking and listening for anything going wrong in her relationship with Ben that he can then use to his advantage. Sure, he could also date Chantry's sister, Nicole, that's an option - that would ALMOST be like dating Chantry, except for the fact that she and her sister are very different people, and also that if he slept with her sister, then he'd never ever EVER get to sleep with Chantry, like maybe after a few decades have gone by, but you hardly ever hear about anyone marrying their ex-brother-in-law any more, although I'm sure in all of human history it must have happened at least once. Like, maybe if your sibling died you might think about dating their spouse, or is that just too icky somehow? I guess it doesn't really matter, it's probably legal in New Jersey though.
I got a little confused at the start of this film, because I think shortly after we see Wallace and Chantry meet for the first time, there's some kind of flash-forward to a date in the future when he deletes a message from her from his phone, it's been there a long time, but we don't know what that means. Did they get together and then break up? Did she die? Or am I really wrong about what's happening here? Was he deleting a message from his EX-girlfriend, is that what was happening? They really should have made this more clear - maybe there was no time-jumping, and I'm always just paranoid about it. There's a very similar scene, almost exactly the same, near the end, maybe that's why I'm confused.
The story continues and shows Wallace and Chantry becoming close friends, but she's living with Ben, so is this going to be some kind of "When Harry Met Sally" thing that follows them for 20 years while they date other people, but, you know, ultimately end up together because when you're a bit older you're smarter about who you date and marry so maybe the person who you've been hanging around with and not dating for a few decades is really THE ONE, or should have been THE ONE from the start, or you never realized that they could be THE ONE because you were with someone else and anyway, they weren't a great romantic partner then, but after a few decades of hanging out they became THE ONE. Is it like that?
Well, not exactly. A lot happens in this one, and maybe it feels real because incidents are so specific, I don't know. I'd need to know a little more about the play this is based on, which is called "Toothpaste and Cigars", maybe. But Wallace and Chantry do spend a lot of time together, the connection is that Wallace's college roommate and best friend is Allan, who is Chantry's cousin. And at the same party where they meet, Allan meets Nicole, and even though they're both seeing other people, it doesn't matter, Allan and Nicole get together in a flash so halfway through the film, they're already engaged, while Wallace is still wondering how to get out of the Friend Zone with Chantry. There's a window of opportunity, though, as Ben works as a lawyer for the United Nations and is asked to spend six months working in Dublin, which then turns into another month in Amsterdam, then a month in France, etc. etc. So it's possible that spending time apart will cause the relationship to dwindle or cease entirely, if Wallace can just work up the nerve to help it along somehow.
Allan and Nicole try to help the process alone by taking their friends to the beach, encouraging them to go skinny-dipping, and then hiding their clothes. Wallace and Chantry are forced to sleep naked on the beach or share a sleeping bag together, which they do, but it doesn't produce the desired result, and now they're mad at their friends and things between them all are very awkward. Finally Chantry decides to use that plane ticket to fly to Dublin and surprise Ben, and really, she's trying to decide between the two men in her life. Ben also gets the notion to fly to Dublin, only he finds Ben and learns that Chantry's already on her way back to Toronto. He speeds back to meet her for breakfast, only to find that she's been offered an animation job in Taiwan. No spoilers here, I'm not going to reveal whether these crazy kids ever manage to get on the same page, but you can probably guess.
Bear in mind that this film was released in 2013, well before the pandemic and also before people realized you can work from anywhere, thanks to the internet and zoom calls. So yeah, back then people offered you jobs in other cities and you then had to move your whole life there if you wanted that job. Weird, right? Anyway, there are some relationship lessons here if you're into receiving them, like don't make the same mistakes your parents made and also maybe don't leave medical school just because you found your girlfriend at the time making out with one of your teaching doctors. Also, don't just remain silent if you have feelings for someone, because that's a form of lying by omission, you have to speak your truth, unless of course that would ruin the friendship. You know what, maybe it is better to not lay all your cards on the table, I don't know, I say keep pushing your emotions down and down, don't swing at every pitch, maybe just hang back and see what's being thrown at you, you can always make your move later. Unless it's too late - geez, this is kind of complicated, there are no easy answers.
Also starring Daniel Radcliffe (last seen in "Kill Your Darlings"), Zoe Kazan (last seen in "She Said"), Adam Driver (last seen in "65"), Megan Park (last seen in "Central Intelligence"), Mackenzie Davis (last seen in "Terminator: Dark Fate"), Rafe Spall (last seen in "A Brilliant Young Mind"), Lucius Hoyos, Jemima Rooper (last seen in "Kinky Boots"), Tommie-Amber Pirie, Meghan Heffern (last seen in "Special Correspondents"), Jonathan Cherry (last seen in "goon: Last of the Enforcers"), Rebecca Northan (last seen in "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium"), Jordan Hayes, Oona Chaplin (last seen in "The Devil's Double"), Adam Fergus (last seen in "The Call of the Wild"), Mike Wilmot (last seen in "The Art of the Steal"), George Tchortov (last seen in "Molly's Game"), Tamara Duarte, Vanessa Matsui (last seen in "The Smurfs 2"), Sarah Gadon (last seen in "A Royal Night Out") with archive footage of Kurt Russell (last seen in "The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two"), Cary Elwes (last seen in "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare"), Robin Wright (last seen in "A Most Wanted Man") and the voice of Peter Falk (last seen in "Butterfly in the Sky").
RATING: 6 out of 10 Fool's Gold sandwiches (the story about Elvis Presley flying his entourage to Denver to get these is not verified, I mean, sure, Elvis tended to be a little extravagant, but all of the ingredients could have easily been obtained in Memphis, if not within Graceland already. Getting the staff at Graceland to make some would have been fairly easy.)
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