What If (2014)

Indie cute OD.

(2014) Romantic Comedy (CBS) Daniel Radcliffe, Zoe Kazan, Adam Driver, Rafe Spall, Megan Park, Mackenzie Davis, Lucius Hoyos, Jemima Rooper, Tommie-Amber Pirie, Meghan Heffern, Jonathan Cherry, Rebecca Northan, Jordan Hayes, Oona Chaplin, Adam Fergus, Sam Moses, Ennis Esmer, Mike Wilmot, George Tchortov, Tamara Duarte, Vanessa Matsui. Directed by Michael Dowse

Finding The One is a matter not only of chemistry but of timing. Both of you have to be in the right place to be able to accept someone into that kind of intimacy. Both of you have to be available. It would help a lot if you’re both as attractive, cool and hip as Daniel Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan.

Wallace (Radcliffe) is a medical school dropout who has had his heart broken one too many times. He lives in his sister’s (Rooper) attic as a kind of live-in babysitter to her son (Hoyos) and spends a lot of time sitting on the roof of his sister’s house gazing soulfully at the Toronto skyline.

His cynical friend Allan (Driver) gets him to go to a party where he meets Chantry (Kazan). The two hit it off right away and spend much of the evening talking. To Wallace’s surprise (and perhaps disgust) Allan has hooked up with Nicole (Davis) and those two are going at it like sailors on a 24 hour pass in a brothel. Not much chance of that happening with Wallace and Chantry though – she has a boyfriend named Ben (Spall) who is a pretty decent fellow who works for the U.N. Kind of a rough challenge for an unemployed medical school dropout to take on, y’know.

 

Nonetheless Wallace and Chantry become the best of friends and when Ben’s work takes him to Dublin for six months, the opportunity is there although Wallace – something of a wimp – shies away from it even though it is clear to everyone who knows him that he’s hopelessly smitten by the comely young Chantry. And for her part, Chantry’s friends suspect she likes Wallace a lot more than she’s letting on, although she lets her somewhat slutty sister Dalia (Park) take a crack at Wallace which ends up pretty disastrously. However as Chantry begins to question her relationship with Ben and a major opportunity knocks for her which might send her halfway around the world. Wallace has the choice of doing the right thing, or…but what is the right thing in this situation, anyway?

This Canadian-made rom com based on a stage play has the advantage of having some attractive leads but the disadvantage of fairly bland personalities for the both of them. Sure, Chantry is an animator whose scribblings occasionally come to life but this contributes to a cuter-than-thou vibe that over-sweetens this concoction like someone dumping a whole jar of refined sugar into a glass of tea. The animations really add nothing to the movie other than to be a distraction reflecting Chantry’s occasional melancholy. Sure Wallace comes off as cooler than the average bear but with a sweet sensitive side that is apt to get all the indie gals in their vintage dresses and fuchsia hair misty-eyed.

Radcliffe, now a grown-up after we watched him grow up in the Harry Potter movies, is an engaging romantic lead, not conventionally handsome like a Hugh Grant but having the same tripping-over-his-own-feet awkwardness that Grant made into a trademark in the 90s. His character here has little in the way of backbone and tries so hard to do the right thing that he ends up making everybody around him miserable. Sometimes doing the wrong thing is the right thing.

Like a few other critics, I found the relationship between Allan and Nicole far more interesting and would have appreciated much more insight into their relationship, even though they do pull a few dick moves during the movie. Their characters seemed more realistic and more alive than the sometimes walking cliches that are Wallace and Chantry.

That’s not to say that the relationship between the two leads doesn’t have its moments. There’s the slapstick sequence that sends Ben out of a window during a disastrous dinner party but sadly there isn’t enough of that. When late in the movie the two of them “break up” as friends due to an issue that could have been resolved simply with a phone call and seems blown way out of proportion in order to manufacture conflict, I could feel my eyes rolling into the back of my head. This is one of the most egregious of rom-com cliches of the 21st century.

This is basically a movie that has a lot of potential but tries too hard to be charming in a Bohemian way, sort of like Toronto doing the East Village and realizing far too late that they’re far too polite and less pretentious to make that work effectively. I liked Radcliffe and Driver, with a hint of Davis and Spall but after that there is much less to love.

REASONS TO GO: Daniel Radcliffe is awfully engaging.

REASONS TO STAY: Way too cute. A surfeit of indie rom-com cliches.

FAMILY VALUES:  A whole lot of sexual references including some brief partial nudity and not an inconsequential amount of profanity.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Casey Affleck and Mary Elizabeth Winstead were originally cast as the leads but the producers decided they wanted to go with younger actors instead which is ironic since Zoe Kazan is in fact older than Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 8/19/14: Rotten Tomatoes: 72% positive reviews. Metacritic: 59/100.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: When Harry Met Sally

FINAL RATING: 6/10

NEXT: Bellflower

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Kinky Boots

Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets.

(Miramax) Joel Edgerton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sarah-Jane Potts, Nick Frost, Linda Bassett, Jemima Rooper, Robert Pugh, Ewan Hooper, Stephen Marcus, Mona Hammond, Kellie Bright, Joanna Scanlon, Geoffrey Streatfield, Leo Bill. Directed by Julian Jarrold

Sometimes our biggest problem is not knowing where we fit in the grand scheme of things. We flail around, trying to find answers but really, the answers are in ourselves for the most part. However, it is also true that life can simply be a process of finding one’s own niche and dwelling within it comfortably.

Charlie Price (Edgerton) doesn’t want his own niche. His father Harold (Pugh) is the owner of Prince and Sons, a Northamptonshire shoe factory that has been in the family for generations, and expects Charlie to pick up on his passion for quality men’s footwear. Charlie, however, would much rather move to London with his sophisticated fiancée Nicola (Rooper) – in fact, the two of them are moving into a gorgeous flat that’s not too expensive, but not too far from it either. Life is going exactly the way Charlie wants it to.

Then his father dies and Charlie must return to Northampton and take over the factory. The workers, who have known Charlie ever since childhood, are leery. After all, he has essentially rejected a way of life that they have known all their lives and takes over the business without knowing all that much about it. The bullheaded, opinionated Don (Frost) expresses what the workers are feeling.

As the days go by, Charlie finds to his horror that the business that he thought was strong and stable was anything but. People don’t look for quality shoes that last a lifetime; retailers want shoes that will force customers to come back over and over again to replace them, and the population is buying things from Nike and Reebok in any case. When he is unable to get a big sale from one of their biggest clients, Charlie is forced to lay off some of his workers, including the loud and brash Lauren (Potts), who chides him for not doing anything to save her job or even finding a new niche for the company.

Depressed and not supported by his fiancée in any way whatsoever, Charlie goes to a bar to get drunk. Staggering home, he witnesses what appear to be several rough men molesting a beautiful black woman in a back alley. Charlie’s attempts at intervening, however, are ill-advised at best and he winds up unconscious and the thugs flee thinking they might have killed him. The woman, however, turns out to be a man dressed as a woman, a highly-regarded female impersonator known as Lola (Ejiofor) who has a show in London. When she remarks after breaking a heel that it’s a shame that there aren’t any sexy boots of women’s style created for a man’s weight, Charlie is struck by brilliant inspiration; there are an awful lot of transgenders, cross-dressers and drag queens out there and they are a market not being served by anyone. Price and Sons could create their own market – a new niche. He recruits Lauren for the scheme and together they pitch Lola to be their designer. After some reluctance, Lola agrees.

However, there are some obstacles. First of all, the working class of Northampton isn’t quite ready for the flamboyant Lola, who tones down her act at Charlie’s urging, but even then, she is not taken to by the workers, especially Don. The financial situation for Price and Sons is dire, and Charlie needs to have samples ready for the Milan Shoe Fair, where prospective buyers would be gathering, in just a matter of weeks. On top of that, Nicola is getting antsy and wants Charlie to walk away from what she senses is impending disaster. Charlie is getting pressured from all sides, and he begins to take it out on those around him. Can he beat the odds?

This is, incredibly enough, loosely based on actual events. The very real Kinky Boots Company served as inspiration for the movie, and quite frankly, I didn’t expect it to be as charming and as heart-warming as it was. Director Jarrold and his cinematographer Eigil Bryld have a nice eye for the dreary industrial landscapes of Northampton, the sophisticated swinging hangouts of London and the classical fashion capital of Milan.

He also cast Lola brilliantly. Ejiofor delivers the kind of performance that I would consider Oscar-worthy if it only had occurred in a movie being released in the latter part of the year. He is brassy, ballsy and charming, with just enough self-doubt to make him human. He also has a surprisingly good singing voice, which he uses to good effect during the musical numbers.

There is a clear message for tolerance, but the filmmakers aren’t preachy about it. They prefer to force the audience to come up with their own ideas of what being a man is all about, and in fact, they seem to say, there is certainly room for more than one picture of what real manhood is. You may not come out of the movie ready to march in the next Gay Pride parade, but you will come out of the movie entertained.

WHY RENT THIS: Ejiofor’s performance is brilliant. The movie is charming and unexpectedly heart-warming. Well-photographed with an eye for the dreary industrial landscapes of Northampton and the glitz and glamour of London and Milan.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Edgerton, a fine actor, is overwhelmed by the flamboyant Ejiofor.

FAMILY VALUES: The thematic material might be a little difficult for some, and there is plenty of salty language to go around.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Director Jarrold is descended from the founders of England’s Jarrold’s Department store, which was founded in 1770.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: There’s a look at the actual factory that inspired the movie, and a short but fascinating look at all the steps that go into the making of a single shoe.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

TOMORROW: The Messenger