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Luke Rivett’s debut dialogue based romantic drama is an attempt at meaningful conversation; a Before Sunrise for the 2010s, if you will. Sadly, his modern day tete-a-tete fails to live up to Richard Linklater’s landmark feat, instead resorting to quirky clichés and hipster tropes.
When nerdy twenty-something male (Matt Jones) spots cute twenty-something female (Alex Hannant) sitting opposite him in an airport .jpg)
lounge, waiting for the same plane, he knows he must make contact. When the plane is forced to re-route and dock in Denver, their discussion continues all the way through to the hotel they stay in. Potential pillow fights, stolen souvenirs and a cockblocking teenager feature….not to mention several early morning hotel trolley rides.
It is easy to admire the premise of such a picture: two unfulfilled young adults exchanging anecdotes and deliberating personal problems in the hopes that they may find an answer. What’s not to like, right? Wrong. Many of the characters’ internal issues also happen to be - to quote a hackneyed phrase - first world problems.
For one, our 22-year old female protagonist claims that Hollywood gave her unrealistic expectations about love: you don’t say? (Give her a break, she’s only 22….) She goes onto speak of being unable to engage in conversation without responding in an ironic or sarcastic manner: yes, positively heart-rending. Our male protagonist articulates the difficulties of breaking away from his trust fund status at the age of 27: I mean, what part of Colombo 7 is this guy from? It really is impossible to feel genuine sympathy for a picture’s leads when their subject matter is so vacuous and trite.
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Both characters also feel unconvincingly idiosyncratic. For example, our female has a penchant for tapping pens on desks and fiddling with soda cup straws: the kind of unrealistic peculiarities only an amateurish screenwriter would draw unnecessary attention to in an already eccentric picture. To top it all off, neither is given a name: yes, despite their individuality, the screenwriter Erin Carroll wants us to believe that despite their quirks, they’re normal human beings with normal lives and normal problems….like the rest of us! Right.
Given this is Rivett’s debut, one should probably reserve judgement for later. However, there is so little to admire in Carroll’s script – its characters lack the poignancy and sincerity of Linklater’s beloved Jesse and Celine – that it becomes too feeble to be taken seriously.
Stars- ★★
By Rehan Mudannayake
Something Real and Good (2013)
Drama
A young man and woman meet by chance in an airport while waiting for a delayed flight. When the plane is rerouted, they decide to make the best of it, and over the course of one night.
Director: Luke Rivett
Writer: Erin Carroll
Stars: Alex Hannant, Matt Jones, Colton Castaneda
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