Featuring: Meg Ryan, David Duchovny
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Director: Meg Ryan
In Cinemas: Now
Two ex-lovers, Bill (David Duchovny) and Willa (Meg Ryan), get snowed in at a regional airport overnight. Indefinitely delayed, Willa, a magical thinker, and Bill, a catastrophic one, find themselves just as attracted to and annoyed by one another as they did decades earlier. But as they unpack the riddle of their mutual past and compare their lives to the dreams they once shared, they begin to wonder if their reunion is mere coincidence or something more enchanted.
Immediate positive expectations were diminished when the film’s opening displayed two dancing animated snowflakes that would have been better suited to a children’s film instead of an adult rom-com. It is never a good sign when feelings of negativity towards the movie start to accumulate well before we get a chance to get lost in the story, and almost instantly, the plot begins to get disorientated. The story’s narrative is frustrating, clunky, and heavily influenced by complex themes that become needless. Our two main and only characters, Bill (David Duchovny) and Willa (Meg Ryan), are presented. as two people who carry a burden of problems with them and seem to be triggered by their past when trying to focus on the future. In theory, the idea has been done countless times before, and no originality is offered here in Meg Ryan’s second attempt at directing, following on from her debut film Ithaca (2015), in which she also plays the lead role. There is so much that Ryan is attempting that it ends up being boring and not engaging when we try to understand and connect with the only characters in the film. An interesting backstory to the prominent people is critical when it only focuses on them for 103 minutes.
David Duchovny’s performance felt like he didn’t want to be there and instead was doing Meg Ryan a favour. The chemistry between the two characters is non-existent, but there is a slight attempt to create a beleavable connection and background between them, and it never seems to land (excuse the pun). Setting the story in the unusual surroundings of an airport was a questionable decision. The realism of the daily operations of an airport didn’t seem to matter to the screenplay writers and must have slipped through the net during the development process. There are moments in this movie that become so frustrating, and those feelings of exasperation are constantly present. The two main characters casually drive around on a golf cart in an empty airport with no security everywhere; the rules do not apply to them. Bill (David Duchovny) helps himself to a couple of drinks in the unmanned bar, and a confused-looking Willa (Meg Ryan) flounders around with her battery-dead phone when hundreds of unused charging sockets are scattered around the airport. She carries a rainstick, a solid and long percussion instrument that could be used as a weapon, and is she allowed to board an aeroplane with no problems? Of course, she is.
Additionally, an annoying airport announcement voice offers advice to Willa and Bill, even when it isn’t even asked. Occasionally, one of our main characters will speak openly and loudly without warning as if asking the universal for answers, and then the tannoy answers and gives advice. Trying to produce an idea surrounding some deep subject matter requires some emotional response from the audience, and then you threaten them with this ridiculous nonsense, which is insulting. Meg Ryan has appeared in iconic rom-com movies, including ‘When Harry Met Sally…’, and perhaps she wanted to create something that could be added to that particular genre. But nothing here works or even tempts for a second viewing. The story is complicated and distracting to captivate and become involved in when the backdrop of having the movie set in an airport is unnecessary and unintentionally becomes comedic.
Overall: 2/10