This is absolutely not my sort of thing. I watched When We First Met because Alexandra Daddario is in it and that is the end of my reasoning. But I was actually pretty pleasantly surprised. Not enough to come away from the movie with a hearty, wide-net recommendation, but it did give a fix for a lot of the problems that I usually find inherent in American Romantic Comedies.
Final rating:★★½ - Had a lot that appealed to me, didn’t quite work as a whole.
Peter McGinn
May 10, 2018
8/10
When We First Met is another entry in the sub-genre of films that I will call, for lack of a better term, Groundhog Day movies. The most recent entries I have seen are Palm Springs and Russian Doll, though the latter is a limited series. They are also called time loop movies, though I prefer my term, which was even used by NewYork Yankee manager Joe Torre to describe his team being beaten in very much the same way in two consecutive championship games. Life imitating art.
I enjoyed the movie overall. There are a few twists to the time loop format. For one thing, in this movie, our hero (?) Noah chooses to relive the fateful events to get the result he wants rather than having it forced upon him. Also, he doesn’t merely relive one day but two: the day he is trying to change and the day three years later when he sees the longer term result of his time-tampering. A third twist is — but that one is best experience in real time, so to speak, so I am not going to give it away here.
I enjoyed the movie mostly, with just a few icky or cringeworthy moments, and would probably watch it again given the chance. It is witty and most of the characters have some depth to them, not just the two leads.
As a side note I offer an observation that hadn’t occurred to me while watching other “Groundhog Day” movies, and which has nothing to do with how good this movie is. I was thinking about how we only get to see Noah’s repeated versions of events. If the movie was following Avery or Carrie, for example, we would see that they don’t know they are living the same days over and over again. They make decisions, but they are only based on what Noah has set up for them each time. He is like a tin god in a way, as deeply flawed as any of the world’s flawed gods. They doin’t get to see all of the versions and decide; he decides for them based on what he feels they want and is best for them. Little tin god.
Sorry; that is digging a little deep for a romantic comedy. is fun and I recommend it on that basis, at least.
