Boy meets girl. Boy likes girl. Girl has a boyfriend. Womp woooomp. Boy spends the rest of a 100-minute movie in a weird relationship limbo with girl, something more than a friend, but of course, never a romantic partner. The premise is repeated for the benefit of other characters, again and again. They talk their way around the details and possibilities of the relationship, again and again. These are 100 minutes of cycles. That is the entirety of What If.
What If was originally titled The F Word, which isn’t quite a great title, but is still a much better, more memorable one than what the movie ended up with. It also speaks more clearly to what the film is about — it’s “The Friend Zone, The Movie.” It’s like a millennial When Harry Met Sally… (a comparison every other reviewer has made, and which every other review to come after will make, but that’s because it’s there, dammit), only one half of the main duo wants something more out of their bond right from the start. It’s difficult to know what the movie thinks of “The Friend Zone.” There’s an awful lot of talking around what Wallace (Daniel Radcliffe) is doing and what he intends to do with Chantry (Zoe Kazan), but again, so much of this is padding out the runtime until Wallace finally, finally takes action on his feelings late in the film.
What makes all of this bearable are the actors. Radcliffe and Kazan are both affable, and more importantly, very fun together. The movie does a good job of making the viewer root for them to turn out alright, in spite of the obstacles in their way. This is Romance 101, and it’s kind of sad that the film pulling this off is notable, but here we are. Adam Driver and MacKenzie Davis also have significant supporting roles as a beta couple who are friends to the leads. Driver is basically playing his character from Girls, though with his level of eccentricity dialed down from “frequently worrisome” to “endearing.” Davis matches him gamely. Rafe Spall plays Chantry’s boyfriend, and is a bit wasted. The movie could have either made him a villain or someone who really seems to deserve Chantry’s love (which would have been interesting), but it tries for the latter only to end up making him pretty bland.
Despite the twist on formula built into the premise, What If is, in most respects, an extremely straightforward romantic comedy. It’s got multiple meet cutes, much witty banter, a few pep talks about What Love Is, and more than one Dramatic Gesture. Even the potentially problematic “Friend Zone” idea (which is based on a definitely horrible social construct) isn’t too grating, since Wallace spends zero time resenting Chantry for the situation. If the movie didn’t spend so much time spinning its wheels, it’d be more enjoyable. And if it didn’t lead itself to a pat, too-cozy ending, it might have managed to have an impact. So What If ends up as a perfectly fine movie that I’ll have forgotten all about by the end of the year.
