‘What If’

By John Lyons

LIKE most film fanatics, whenever I’m feeling stressed about something, I like to go to the cinema and forget about my troubles for two hours.

That was the case this week when I was let down by a famous film-maker who had promised me an interview.

So I thought I’d cleanse my palate by seeing a film that was completely devoid of all cliches, and as if I was purposely trying to be ironic, I choose to watch a romantic comedy – probably cinema’s most generic, predictable genre.

Apart from the two lead actors and the poster, I knew nothing about ‘What If’ a romantic comedy starring Daniel Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan..

And I began have second thoughts about choosing this film when I realised that I was the only person who had shown up to see it.

I had even more doubts during the first scene with Radcliffe.

No matter what Daniel Radcliffe does with his career from here on out, he’s forever blessed/doomed to be identified as Harry Potter. Straight away I began to worry that I wouldn’t be able to take him seriously as another character at all.

Luckily however, I was wrong. Radcliffe plays the role of a timid, soft-spoken, self-conscious loser with ease (and I say that with love).

Radcliffe’s co-star, Zoe Kazan, quickly re-establishes herself as an actress with God-given talent by utilising that same loveable charisma that she first stole our hearts with in ‘Ruby Sparks’ two years ago.

The premise couldn’t be more basic: Wallace (Radcliffe) is a self-loathing, shy loner who’s still pining over the girl that he was last involved with, despite the fact that it’s been over a year since their breakup.

Wallace bumps into Chantry (Kazan) at a party and is instantly smitten. There’s just one catch though – Chantry has a boyfriend who she’s been with for five years.

The two become best friends nonetheless and try their hardest to remain oblivious to the unspoken but obvious romantic connection between them.

It’s not hard to see why ‘What If’ was originally titled ‘The F Word’. With the ‘F’ assumedly standing for ‘Friends’.

I’m well aware of how undeniably dull this whole ‘friend-zone’ premise sounds, and I’ll be the first to admit that it’s not too hard to guess what the ending will probably be.

Yet here I am, trying to figure out just how the filmmakers behind ‘What If’ managed to take this incredibly boring premise and use it as the foundation for one of the best and most achingly honest romantic comedies that I’ve had the pleasure of seeing in years.

Every moment in which I thought I knew where this film was going, it shifted gears. Each time I assumed that the sexual tension was about to simmer to a boil, the two characters would instead start fighting.

Any time that it seemed like the duo would just inevitably accept the fact that they’d never wind up together, there would be a little intimate moment that suggested otherwise.

Credit where credit’s due – the film played me like a fiddle.

Furthermore, the film is way funnier than it has any right to be. Which is a real rarity. In fact I’d argue that most romantic comedies are simply romance films with an odd joke here or there, the same applies to dramatic comedies (or dramedies, as they’ve unfortunately come to be known), with terribly few exceptions. ‘What If’ genuinely made me laugh.

My favourite thing about the comedy was that it wasn’t forced.

The actors didn’t change their tone of voice or place emphasis on the sly remarks that they made to one another, it was just a natural part of the dialogue exchange. It really is a nice change of pace to watch a film layered with subtle humour, because it’s so wonderfully un-patronising to the audience.

‘What If’ can only be described as some sort of miraculous magic trick. The writer of the film – Elan Mastai – manages to inject so much originality and undeniable soul into cinema’s arguably most formulaic genre.

It’s actually really impressive how Mastai was able to take the typical tropes and contrivances that we’ve become so attuned to in romantic comedies and use them against us in order to subvert our expectations and keep us guessing, and even allow the story to unfold in incredibly interesting ways.

Best of all, Mastai somehow does this in a way that seems completely natural to the progression of the story.

Not only was this film a wonderful little gem of a find (albeit, by complete accident) – it also made my day.

8/10

• Follow John Lyons on Twitter: @Fireinthelyons