The One I Love

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Paul

We've all seen those typical romantic comedies where the set up involves a little bit of magical realism. A couple switches bodies, a guy can suddenly hear what women are thinking, a guy lives the same day over until he gets it right, a kid wakes up as an adult, or worse, as her mother. These kinds of premises have been used to set up the same basic romantic comedy structure before.

But what if instead of just being a fun complication that ends up getting our two leads together at the end, this magical mystery plot trope is seen as a genuinely freaky occurrence with some dark consequences that threaten to shift the fun romantic comedy into a fantastic and dark morality sci-fi-ish drama?

Okay, so that's not entirely what happens here, but it's pretty close, and that excites me greatly. This film was really fun and thought I wished they had pushed it further, what they have is really great. The trailer doesn't give away the premise and it was really fun to go into blind and work out just what was going on, so I'll just say that it's a great device that gets some bigger and far more sinister twists as the story develops.

And it's a wonderfully simple set up. Just two people, Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss, in a single location, on a retreat to try to fix their failing marriage. It's a typical set up but with a slightly unorthodox trajectory. Really great fun. Makes me think what real world reactions and ramifications to those other magical realism romantic comedy situations there might be...