What an endearing movie. When What if, a Canadian-Irish rom-com came out in 2013, it was a modest critical success and a flop at the worldwide box office. Seven years later it has popped up on Netflix to be found, enjoyed and re-watched as an unknown gem that is easy to know by heart.
If I was a romantic comedy, how would I describe myself? There is a story that I like to tell over and over about love. I re-experience the emotions of this story each time, but going through some slight changes, depending on what year humanity’s in. Since the cynicism and value-crisis of 90s post-modernity has become fashionable, I and my many counterparts are all children of Harry and Sally, or seem to be distantly related in some way. We keep posing the same question – Can men and women be friends? It seems the only way I can function nowadays is if I self-deconstruct, call attention to the fact that I am a rom-com and I have many clichés, but declare that in the end it doesn’t matter because the love I’m talking about – to quote Raymond Carver – is absolute.
When broken-hearted romantic med school dropout Wallace (Daniel Radcliffe), suddenly meets whip-smart and lonely Chantry (Zoe Kazan) an animator in a serious relationship with her U.N. worker boyfriend (Rafe Spall), there is an instant connection, and an exchange of witty and awkward banter about insecurities and pain. They become fast friends, but of course this attraction massively complicates their lives.
The two leads are charming, relatable and although both handsome, look like real people (in one scene I even realized that the girl is taller than the boy if she has heels on). Kazan and Radcliffe have a subtle chemistry that suggests best friends first, lovers second, but the sparks flying are still undeniable and this subtlety gives time for the on-screen relationship to build in a believable way. The film shares their points of view in an even-handed manner, we even get some lovely 2D animations when we are with Chantry that expresses how she sees her own position in life, and when we are with Wallace, he sometimes spends quiet moments on the roof of his home, staring at the panorama of Toronto, and drinking in the cool evening air. Can these two remedy each other’s loneliness?
The film’s success is very much down to the screenplay and its particulars, with simple but skilled direction by Michael Dowse, a gently emotional and nimble score by A. C. Newman and a good selection of indie-rock and pop songs guiding the viewer (the original title was The F Word, the “F” standing for “friend” and has been adapted by Elan Mastai from the play Toothpaste and Cigarettes by T. J. Dawe and Michael Rinaldi).
One of the script’s high points is the crude-lewd humour that provides belly laughs by not shying away from discussing bodily functions, sex, perversity, etc., but that never goes overboard. Many comedies/rom-coms confuse being gross with being funny. If they want to take the crude-route it is better to engage the audience through their imagination that will accentuate the humour of verbal grossness. What if follows suit admirably.
Some of this bluntness comes from three more sexually adventurous sidekick characters who don’t have the hang-ups or moral quandaries as the two leads, there is Wallace’s antisocial friend and Chantry’s cousin Allan (Adam Driver who makes a lovable comedy duo with Radcliffe), fast-love of his life Nicole (Mackenzie Davis), and Chantry’s dysfunctional sister Dalia (Megan Park), who all start out as stereotypes but get humbled into becoming real people. Even Rafe Spall’s romantic rival is relatable instead of being some big macho jerk (though has some jealous moments), it is rather that his life is heading in a different direction, and his work might be becoming more important than his relationship.
Choices such as this one colour a story that is – as often in the case of rom-coms – also a belated coming of age story. Will Wallace continue to stay at his sister and work a dead-end office job or will he return to med school? Will Chantry take a Project Manager position or will she play it safe and remain an animator with less responsibilities, smaller challenges in her career? Are they willing to commit to themselves and each other? We probably know the answers to these questions, but the path to these answers are worth it.
Equating What if to the Fool’s Gold loaf which serves as an important MacGuffin within the romantic plot might be cheap, but I’ll do it anyway as a cheeky dare similar to the film’s attitude. It is super sweet and fun to consume, a bit banal, disgusting at times, strangely filling and…Unhealthy? Some might say that romantic comedies are harmful because they make the audience more susceptible to delusion, even in the case of re-standardized deconstructionist examples, like this one. I just remember the magic words; it’s only a movie.
Rating: 76%
Ágoston's Film Odyssey 