Thursday, August 28, 2014

Andrew's Cinematic Adventures: What If Movie Review

My most recent movie experience wasn't necessarily my greatest experience of all time. While the company I was with was fantastic, the movie I saw left a little (well...a LOT) to be desired.

I initially went into seeing "What If" with an open mind. I had not seen Daniel Radcliffe in anything other than Harry Potter. But I had seen Zoe Kazan in "Ruby Sparks" and I have always been in love with her.

Seriously. She has replaced both Ellen Page and Zooey Deschanel as my shameless celebrity crush. Zoe Kazan is gorgeous, beautiful, cute, adorable, and any other adjective you could use to describe the attributes of a woman. SHE IS ALL OF THEM DANGET. THE WOMAN IS GLORIOUS (she's the one with the blonde hair in the movie poster on the left, if you were wondering).

Back to the movie. If you haven't heard of "What If", it's essentially the story of a guy named Wallace (played by Harry Potter) who meets a girl named Chantry (I spent the majority of the movie thinking her name was Jentry....so there's that) at his friend's party. They have an instant connection, but she has a boyfriend. Wallace then spends the entirety of the movie being her best friend/puppy dog guy who follows her around hoping he can lift her back up once her boyfriend turns out to be the doosch bag he's inevitably going to become. This movie is basically about the horrors of the friend zone.

By the way, I don't actually think the friend zone is a thing. My opinion is that the friend zone is something created by non-confident guys to make girls who don't want to date them feel bad about not wanting to date them. Guys...it's ok to just be friends with girls. ITS OK.

So Harry is essentially wanting to date Zoe throughout the movie. There's a lot of sexual tension. A lot of Harry just being Harry and giving her that look that says he wants to invade her "dormitory." But because there's a Keeper (boyfriend), he cannot access her Golden Snitch. (I'm sorry...there's just so many Harry Potter references to be made). I think I can find a picture of that weird/creepy wizard look he gives Zoe throughout the movie. Ahhh...here it is:



The movie was ok. I'm not entirely sure it knew what it wanted to be. It was half romantic comedy/ half raunchy comedy. Zoe Kazan was fantastic...as was Harry's (I know his name isn't Harry) best friend (played by Adam Driver). I really just struggled seeing anyone other than Harry Potter for the entirety of the film. I'm not sure Daniel Radcliffe will ever be to be anything other than Harry Potter. There was a part in the movie where "Wallace" says he wishes he could just disappear and I yelled out, "But you can Harry! Use your CLOAK OF INVISIBILITY! Or apparate..."

Radcliffe just wasn't made for romantic comedies. He's awkward in a way that just didn't work for this movie. And there was very little chemistry between he and Zoe. I felt more chemistry between Harry and Ginny in Harry Potter (there wasn't much, but more than between he and Zoe). Plus there was a lot of awkward forced dialogue and conversations about things I don't believe any sane person would have a conversation about (like Elvis' bowel movements and whether he had one the night he was found dead in his bathroom...yeah).

I was honestly just waiting for Harry to go back in his cupboard under the stairs and tell Hedwig it was all a dream about how he realized he wouldn't necessarily make it in the world of Muggles. And then Zoe Kazan would be free for me to come sweep her and her beautiful self off her feet. She'd forget all about the "Chosen Boy" Harry Potter that she didn't want to date for half the movie anyway...

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