When I first read an early article about this project…that Meg Ryan was directing and acting in a romantic-comedy with David Duchovny based on a two-person play about old lovers meeting in an airport during a snowstorm…I had a strange feeling that this might actually turn out to be a good film.
Now, seeing this trailer, I think my initial hunch might just be correct.
All the elements were/are there to make it something special. Two actors who have fallen off the radar, are overdue for a comeback, in a romantic film about and for people who are aging out of romantic-comedy territory. There’s real novelty and potential in that. And then to be directed by an actress who was at one time the most famous representative of the genre, “America’s Sweetheart” herself, that gives it an even more interesting angle.
In recent years, Meg Ryan has more often been the subject of speculation about her plastic surgery mistakes than a working actress. She seemed to have retired from her acting career altogether. She made her directing debut in 2015 with a little-seen film called Ithaca, in which she had a small role. But otherwise, she was reduced to appearing in People magazine because of her on-again/off-again relationship with John Mellancamp.
So it’s genuinely nice to see her again – face older, yes, but nicely so, and relaxed – and to find in this trailer that she still has that witty, effervescent quality that made everyone fall in love with her 30 years ago.
Until very recently, Duchovny pulled his own disappearing act for a long time there. And his own face looked suspiciously altered, took on a strange bloated Garry Shandling-like look. He often had a drugged, numb quality in the projects we did see him in. Here he seems to be back in both look and alertness and has just the right weathered sarcasm for this late-love story.
The actors feel perfectly matched in temperament and acting style.
The film has a nice professional gloss, but looks appropriately intimate, not trying to hide that it’s a two-hander. The dialogue doesn’t feel overly jokey or forced (see: Ticket To Paradise with Julia Roberts and George Clooney…or, on second thought, don’t). The only point of concern for me is the surreal touch of the PA Announcement Guy actually responding to them – it might play well as a conceit when I see the whole film, but at first glance it seems like an unnecessary gimmick that might take away from the story’s reality. I hope I’m wrong and I may well be. It could be argued that this whimsical touch makes the contrived premise – stuck all alone in an abandoned airport after hours – more self-aware and easier to accept. WWNED – What Would Nora Ephron Do?
Overall though, I’m very optimistic, and the timing feels right not just for the return of the old-fashioned romantic-comedy, but one that wears its wrinkles and exhausted love life with a sigh and a twinkle in the eye.
Here’s hoping.
POSTSCRIPT:
I was wrong. I was so, so wrong…
I finally got around to seeing this movie this week on Pay Per View. Despite reading some pretty withering reviews I still held out hope it was somehow misunderstood and underappreciated.
NOPE.
It is really that bad. It is a phenomenally, painfully bad movie.
It is so bad it hardly makes any sense to point out the flaws because…well, life is too short. There were so many terrible choices made in the execution of what could have been, should have been, a bittersweet and mature Rom-Com about aging and regret and lost love, that I wouldn’t know where to start.
The screenplay is based on a play, but that is not the problem – the confined setting of being stuck in an airport during a blizzard, if played realistically, is the perfect excuse for a believable two-hander. The problem is there is absolutely nothing realistic about the way the two characters and the situation are written. Turns out the God-like PA Announcer talking to them was a bad sign after all. Sure enough, the tone Meg Ryan seems to be going for is one of “magical fate” ala her old hit “Sleepless In Seattle” (she even dedicates the movie to Ephron), but that forced whimsy does not mix well with her awkward attempts at pathos and emotional catharsis in the third act. Since none of it feels remotely real, least of all the ex-lovers themselves and their history together, it is impossible to get engaged enough to care what happens. It is especially frustrating because, as I said before I saw it, these are two likable veteran performers who could really have created something special with better material.
But Meg Ryan The Director seriously fails Meg Ryan The Actress here…and David Duchovny, despite a valiant effort, doesn’t fare much better.
By the ending, when they are sat in two different airplanes side-by-side on the runway and mugging at each other through their windows as if just inches apart, all one can do is sigh and rub their face in pure misery.
And, god help us, that’s before the two planes’ contrails make a heart in the sky.
How could they have fucked this up so badly?
Somebody should have told Ryan she had a great premise, but a lousy script that needed a Page One rewrite. They should have told her that if she cut the cutesy stuff and played it real she could make a small modern classic.
As it stands…it is a complete waste of time.
Bittersweet, alright.
