Starring Chris Evans and Alice Eve
Written by Ronald Bass, Jen Smolka, Chris Shafer and Paul Vicknair
Directed by Chris Evans
Age between the romantic leads: 0 years. That's right! They're the same age! Saints be praised!
I like Chris Evans, I like Alive Eve, this film is around an hour and a half long. I was always going to click on this on Netflix at some point.
Now, my relationship with rom-coms is involved. I personally am of the opinion that when it's done right, watching two characters fall for each other on screen is one of the most joyous things it's possible to witness. The difficulty is most rom-coms don't do it well. It's too obvious, or not believable, or has Ashton Kutcher in it. And this film, from the poster and the fact it's really a film that has only 2 characters for the vast majority, seemed like it was absolutely going to head down the too obvious route.
The first 5 minutes did little to assuage my fear. Attractive man meets attractive woman, they connect because of serendipitous happenstance, and they don't really get on too well at first (BUT THERE'S A CHANCE THEY'LL START TO LIKE EACH OTHER BEFORE TOO LONG). But then the film changes, and there are husbands and issues introduced that suggest that this film will be the rarest of beasts: a film about a man and a woman that doesn't result in a love story. It was different, and interesting, and kept everything going relatively logically and entertainingly. Yes, there were points where the dialogue and the situations were a little too contrived (the song, the 'phoning your past self' section) but this is a film that could almost be a play, and in every play I've ever seen there needs to be unrealistic dialogue to move the plot forward when we're with two characters for an extended period of time. And everything was moving in a fun, entertaining, allowably realistic direction.
But then (and I don't think this is too much of a spoiler) the mutual attraction thing raises it's head, and the film suffers massively for it. Whilst this film earns a mutual attraction more than others, the story it sets up shouldn't have it, or at least shouldn't have it stated to explicitly. Hints at an attraction would have done far more for the two leads' stories than what we eventually get. The whole thing hints at a film that is stuck between telling the story it wants to tell, and telling the story Hollywood wants it to tell. The two pairs of writers credited with writing the film seems to confirm this, with the second pair brought on to make it all a little more familiar to audiences who want to see their attractive people kiss, dammit!
The leads are both good in their roles. Alice Eve paints a picture of a full, flawed character, who isn't sure how to solve the situation she finds herself in. The decision she ultimately makes is one that not everyone will agree with, which makes it all the stronger. And I've yet to see a bad Chris Evans performance. He's charismatic, likeable, and always interesting to watch.
It's also his directorial debut, and he performs the job acceptably. I'm not sure what choices he could have made with the script, but ultimately this isn't a film that you will come away from citing the direction as a big plus point. Not great, not bad, just ok. The only decision he seems to have made is to tell the cinematographer that he loves bokeh (the circles light turns into when it's not being focused on). The majority of the film looks like Evans and Eve conversing in front of a light up Twister board, but is cute nonetheless.
Overall, the film is in two parts. I'd give 4 things to the majority, and the film it could have been, and 2 things to what the ending makes it. So splitting the difference I give this film: