Love at First Sight (2023)
The only thing that might have saved this movie is if they had called it Love at First Flight instead. Even if Dr. Johnson was right that puns are the lowest form of humor, they are still preferable to clichés. Then again, this entire film is one big fucking cliché.
When the protagonists mention a “cheesy romcom” with “a happy ending,” they’re talking about the in-flight entertainment, but they might as well be referring to their own story — an irony that was completely lost on the filmmakers, who otherwise played this material embarrassingly straight.
The first half of the movie is a homeopathically diluted Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight knockoff, while the second half is an abridged Serendipity ripoff. Not good company to be in.
As much as I enjoy Richard Linklater’s work, I’m not a fan of the Before stuff. Having said that, at least Before Sunrise (the one I’ve paid more attention to) wisely avoided voice-over narration and breaking the fourth wall — two sins that Love at First Sight quickly and eagerly indulges in, resulting in twice the amount of flaccid, sloppy writing.
The narrator (Jameela Jamil) is not only omniscient but also ubiquitous, appearing in several capacities throughout the movie. Who this fucking broad is even supposed to be, though, I haven’t the foggiest. Moreover, are the main characters really so dumb they can’t tell that this bitch keeps popping up wherever they go? Is she stalking them or something?
In addition to being a suspension of disbelief-killing nuisance, the narrator has an annoying habit of spouting totally made-up statistics such as, “Approximately 17.6% of people will walk away from the love of their life [sic].” This information is as useless as it is arbitrary. If they walk away, how the fuck do they know it was the love of their lives?
The plot, such as it is, revolves around Hadley Sullivan (Haley Lu Richardson) and Oliver Jones (Ben Hardy). They’re supposed to be in their early twenties, but are played by actors who are closer to and beyond 30, respectively.
There’s absolutely no reason, script-wise, that the characters couldn’t be either in their late 20s-early 30s or played by actors who are 20 years old — but then, here’s a screenplay that offers such gems as, “She’s afraid of three things, including mayonnaise, small spaces, and dentists.”
Uh, those are three things. You don’t have to say “including” if you’re enumerating every single item on the list. Also, do you think being afraid of a condiment is funny, especially when this particular tidbit has no bearing whatsoever on the plot? Yeah, me neither.
Hadley and Oliver meet cute in an airport. “I’m Oliver,” he says.” “As in Twist?” she replies. I was hoping for Oliver, upon hearing Hadley’s name, to quip, “as in Hemingway’s first wife?” — no such luck, though.
Could it be a coincidence that Papa’s Hadley and the actress playing this film’s Hadley share the last name Richardson? Or was this meant to be just an inside joke? If the latter, they should have made it an outside joke, so painfully bereft of wit is this script.
It doesn’t take long for Hadley and Oliver to become well acquainted with each other during their flight to London, mainly because they have very little to say. Both are equally one-dimensional, having each been traumatized by one of two of the most overused plot devices in the book: she by her parents’ divorce, and he by his mother’s cancer.
They are separated on arrival, and go to great lengths to reunite. Well, not so much ‘great’ (in fact, they find one another fairly easily) but you get the idea.
What we do not get is why they become so hung up on the other. They have about as much chemistry as two people randomly seated together in an airplane could aspire to have, no more and no less.
You could imagine them friending each other on Facebook, perhaps exchanging a couple of e-mails, and then totally forgetting about one another — because that’s exactly what they are: totally forgettable. Love at first sight? More like, ‘outta sight, outta mind.’
Related
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cEZqLI9Mio
#comedy #movieReview #romance #romcom
