Film 69 - What If?

What If? (Advanced Screening) 04/08/2014

In Chick-Flix, the guys get a really bad wrap.  So many relationships are broken because the girl always find a better man than she already has...but what is saying the new guy is not going to be dumped right around the corner for the next new guy?

I really do think that the message portrayed in these films is really wrong, but I am a bloke and I am not looking for my prince charming.....

What If? sees Daniel Radcliffe escaping his Harry Potter role in a romantic comedy about a chance meeting between his character, Wallace, and Chantry.  Both lead characters seem to hit is off immediately with their quirky humour and become great friends on the walk home from a party.  This is when Chantry drops the bombshell that she has a boyfriend, a long term boyfriend.  Now in usual Chick-Flick style this is were the boyfriend is an evil, manipulative, horrible person but the shy girl thinks she can do no better....with What If? the boyfriend is a genuinely nice guy who loves his girl very much.

Obviously, boy and girl cannot be just friends as this is a physical impossibility and Wallace falls head over heels for Chantry, but remains "just good friends" as he does not want to break up the happy couple.  Wallace has come from a divorced family as both his parents cheated on each other, and his last long term relationship ended when he caught his girlfriend cheating on him, so his outlook on love is tarnished.

Yet as you can probably imagine (no spoilers necessary as they all end the same way) Chantry takes the choice to leave everything good she has and the leave the loving relationship to get together with Wallace.  What message does that portray to people? How is this a happy ending, you have just witnessed the breakdown of a perfectly good relationship into decay?  The boyfriend in question has to travel to Dublin for work related purposes (and does not cheat on her whilst in a foreign country surrounded by beautiful European women), he also buys Chantry an open airline ticket to come and see him at any time, and she waits months!

Thinking about it, she didn't deserve him and should go into the relationship built on lies and distrust with Wallace.

I really didn't enjoy this film because of the reasoning behind it, I didn't agree with anything on screen apart from the love of The Princess Bride.  In the early 90's I met a girl in high school who instantly became a great friend and she remains one of my closest friends to this day, there has never been any physical/sexual attraction between us, and we have an amazing friendship.  Also, Wallace is really hypocritical character as his issues with love is that people in his life have always cheated, so to combat this he breaks up a loving relationship by encouraging one of the parties to cheat on the other.  

Daniel "Harry Potter" Radcliffe can actually act, which is something I thought I would ever say after the HP films, and Mackenzie Davis is an excellent reprieve from the story as Nicole, but these highlights did not save the film for me.

Hypocritical, bad morales, poor story and not enough focus on The Princess Bride