Friday, February 28, 2020

Romancefest 2020: When We First Met


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Written by Josh Whittington. Directed by Ari Sandel. Starring Adam DeVine, Alexandria Daddario, Shelley Hennig, Andrew Bachelor and Robbie Amell. USA, 2018.

Thanks to a magical time travelling photobooth, a dude gets to keep traveling back in time to the day he met The One Who Got Away, and try to make things right. As he repeats time after time and tries different things, he begins to learn that maybe he didn’t really know what he wanted in the first place, and finds love in an unexpected way.

Here’s one that I think really does exploit its premise. Unlike “What Men Want” and “Isn’t it Romantic,” this is not a romantic comedy where you could throw out the gimmick and have basically the same movie. This is one where the gimmick IS the movie, and is totally exploited for both comedic effect and emotional effect. This is the kind of movie where, if you took out some of the R-rated elements, you could sort of have a Capra-type flick. Sorta. Maybe I took it too far. In any case, it’s endlessly inventive and worth a watch, and not totally predictable, either.

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