When I showed up at the Her Campus’ and Student Events’ Fall Film Series showing of What If, my expectations were pretty clearly summed up by the phrase “rom-com with Harry Potter and a blonde, vaguely birdlike hipster chick”. I even hedged on whether or not I wanted to go. I wasn’t the strange blend of cheerful and wistful that is usually required for movies that have such a potentially high cheese content. But, enticed by the prospect of at least seeing attractive people bum around on screen for 100 or so minutes, I rolled in and was immediately plied with various goodies and concessions (like a $10 Aeropostale gift card and some to-die-for cupcakes). Okay, I thought. Not bad.
And in fact, the movie itself turned out to be better than I’d hoped as well. It starts off with Daniel Radcliffe as Wallace, a med school dropout who apparently spends his time either moodily sitting on his sister’s roof or standing around at parties rearranging magnet fridge poetry into stanzas like “Love is stupid monkeys dancing in a slapstick hurricane.” And so we have your typical, “love is pointless and only hurts people,” cynic.
Enter Chantry (played by Zoe Kazan).
Chantry is, at first glance, not much of a substantial character. She’s witty, she’s cute, she seems about as awkward and quirky as Wallace. You could almost hear the audience typecasting her into the Manic Pixie Dream Girl that would solve all of Wallace’s problems and show him how to love again. But problems arise in this narrative when it fumbles out that she has a boyfriend and has been with him for 5 years.
With this revelation, What If turns from a trite and typical romantic comedy to a less overdone, yet still familiar storyline many have started calling it “the millennial When Harry Met Sally.” The crux of the story now becomes Wallace and Chandry’s blossoming platonic relationship, which is sharply contrasted at various points throughout the movie against their friends’ more rapidly romantic relationships. Chandry becomes more of a real human. She is still witty, yes, and still quirky, but we see her go through things that are solely hers, like the process of living alone while in a transatlantic relationship and the impact of a job promotion on her personal vs. her professional life.
With this development of her character, we as an audience get to watch a movie that focuses on the development of a relationship between two people who are actively trying to not fall for each other, and what it means to only try to be friends in the face of intense emotional compatibility. It deals with the consequences of “just following your heart.”But mostly, it’s a feel good rom-com with Harry Potter in it. And sometimes, when that’s really all you’re looking for, that’s all you need.
If you’d like to see more from the Student Events Fall 2014 Film Series, check out their page on Facebook! The next installment is a showing of Guardians of the Galaxy on October 24th and 25th.