What If (Dan Radcliffe was a good actor?*)

Look at how cute they are!

What if guys and girls could be just friends? Ridiculous, I know! Wallace and Chantry (yes, Chantry) meet, make cute, and strike up a relationship. The only teeny tiny problem is that Chantry has a serious boyfriend of five years, Ben. What follows is an hour of will they/won't they, and then they...well, you know. It's a romcom. 

That said, this movie is sparkling. The banter between Wallace and Chantry is relaxed and very funny. You feel like you're a fly on the wall peering into two people's lives. Or the creep at a party watching interactions from across the room (not that I ever did that...). 

The secondary characters bring a lightness to what could be overly sentimental, pulling focus from the central drama and adding layers to the formula. Chantry's sister Dahlia is a little over the top, but their closeness and shorthand is hilarious. At one point the sisters are sunning themselves on the beach, and Dahlia shows Chantry how pregnant she can make herself look. I've done this. I appreciated seeing two skinny female leads do it on screen. 

Wallace's best friend and former college roommate Alan is a joy, as Adam Driver always is. He's hilarious and seems at first to be the one-dimensional party friend. When he meets his (future wife) Nicole, they spend the whole night making out on the couch. Hook-up culture! But then they get married and fights happen (off screen of course) and even this hilarious wing man is fleshed out and allowed to grow. 

Even though this is a romantic comedy and ultimately about two particular people, it feels more like an ensemble. Or at least, if this makes sense, it doesn't seem as if Wallace and Chantry are the stars in their own heads. It's more like you're looking a group of people, focused on two people in the center of that group, but other characters could just as easily be a different center. 

The progression of the plot also feels more realistic and developed than the typical fare. Even though you pretty much know what is going to happen, the film really shows these characters making hard, studied decisions. It doesn't just throw them into the thing you know they're going to do because you know what's going to happen so what more do you want?? Instead it lets characters get there for themselves. And besides, knowing how a movie is going to end is what makes it so satisfying. If this movie ended and they didn't get together, most people would leave the theater feeling ripped off (and, incidentally, it wouldn't be as commercially viable). Audiences don't go see a romantic comedy to see how it will turn out. We go to see how it will turn out - literally how it will unfold. We know the beats. We want to see how the writer, director and actors make up the transitions, the new steps they invent, how close and real they can make this known story. 

What If also does an excellent job of making the dilemma real, even for the audience. Chantry's boyfriend Ben is not just some throw-away two-dimensional villain type that Chantry is devoted to for some unthinkable reason. Ben is a fully-developed person (thanks in large part to Rafe Spall's performance). He's smart and likable and really loves Chantry, and neither she nor the audience can easily write him off. It makes the inevitable decision bittersweet, which contributes to making this formula feel fresh and real. This decision is like life - there's no choice that will get you an A, because there is no A in life. It's messy, and sad, and hard. You hope the results are worth it.

That's where this movie stumbles just a bit. The ending, after the big decision, is kind of a let down. It's inevitably how I personally feel - speaking as someone who is in a long term relationship, watching a five year relationship fade away without a squeak was unsatisfactory and unrealistic to me. All of a sudden we flash forward 18 months into the future and everything is hunky-dory and Wallace and Chantry are totally happy. Back in the theater, I missed Ben, and my heart hurt for him. But I suppose in a 90 minute run time there's not enough room to be truly egalitarian with every character. So even though this is a con for my movie-going experience, it's a necessary evil to make this movie go. 

One other tiny qualm: one of the movie's main theses appears to be that your soul mate should be a version of yourself. At one point some Chantry's friends joke that Wallace is the male version of her - "Mantry". They think alike on most things, and one time they accidentally get each other the exact same present. I get that this is film language short hand for compatibility, but it is disappointingly simplistic. For a film that presents studied, realistic characters (at least in Chantry's case, Wallace is a little more straight forward), I wish the relationship was deeper. In real life, in my experience at least, couples that are exactly alike don't last that long. Here's the thing: I'm not that crazy about myself. I mean, I don't hate myself, but most of the things that drive me crazy in this world are things that I do. Dating me sounds like a fucking nightmare. I don't know how my boyfriend does it. In real life, the thing that makes relationships strong are the differences between people. When I'm annoying, you are graceful. When you're going crazy, I stay calm. Humans are attracted to the dyad situation (not just because of our puritan, religious roots) because a see-saw is easier to weight than a balance beam. A strong couple balances out, with one person on each side, switching sides according to the situation. You need to be close enough to be in the same situation, mentally. But different enough to not be on the same side of the situation. 

Anyway, dating a male version of myself sounds exhausting. And I would have liked to see more tension between Chantry and Wallace. It would have deepened their relationship. We only get two real fights. The first one is just blowing off steam because they're angry at their stupid friends. The second one is the inevitable emotional climax of the film, when it looks like all their hopes are dashed and they'll never get together (one of those formulaic beats I was talking about earlier). We don't ever see them managing each other, or compensating for each other. We just see them in 100% synch, or totally opposed. I'm telling you from experience, that gets boring. 

All that said--I loved it. You have to remember, I'm a complainer. For what is it, What If pulls off an entertaining, realistic-ish, funny and touching 90 minutes with a flourish. 

I saw it twice in theaters. 

*I rag on Dan because of Harry Potter, but that's not really his fault. Only so much you can do playing "The Chosen One." He's really great in this! 

**This post brought to you by the What If soundtrack, composed by A.C. Newman!!!