I’ve always liked the Give Yourself Goosebumps series (children’s horror fiction gamebook series), which offers you the chance to choose the scare you want to have. Netflix took a page out of it by giving us Bandersnatch (Black Mirror), its first interactive film. Since then, the streamer has employed this gimmick across many genres, and the latest such film is the romcom, Choose Love. While we have to deduct a few points for the not-so-clever title, the film is a harmless collection of scenes that pushes the audience to find the right man for the protagonist Cami (a charming Laura Morano).
Cast: Laura Marano, Scott Michael Foster, Jordi Webber, Avan Jogia
Director: Stuart McDonald
Streaming on: Netflix
When we first meet Cami, a recording engineer, she is already in a steady relationship with Paul (Scott Michael Foster), and just hours ahead of what would be his big proposal, she meets her high school boyfriend Jack (Jordi Webber) and runs into celebrity musician Rex (Avan Jogia). Mind you… all of this happens in a single day, just hours before Paul is going to propose, and she now wants us to help her find the right guy. Should she accept to go to lunch with Jack? We decide it for her. Should she accept a raise in her company or quit the job? We pick. Should Cami leave everything and follow her dream of becoming a singer? Once again, we choose life for her.
After a point, playing God gets exhausting, not because we are bored with the unbridled power, but we are bored with the consequences of our actions. The scenes don’t really make us understand the enormity of our choices, and after a point, I started going back in time and changing a few choices to see if those variables really impacted Cami’s life. While I liked how some of my choices made her follow her dreams, the more interactive the film got, the less connected we become with the characters. Indecisiveness is different from insensitivity, and Cami often oscillates between the two in dealing with her three suitors. This lack of empathy works against the film, and it doesn’t help that two of the three suitors are as charming as a wet towel, and have nothing to make us choose them, let alone Cami.
What really works for the film is the brief moments the characters break the fourth wall to talk to us about our choices. These are genuinely funny and even insightful at times. It is a neat little touch to humanise the film and make us take our jobs a bit more seriously. It reminds us that human emotions are at stake. However, such thoughts hardly arise when we are going through the motions of this generic romantic comedy that wants to be both a fun exercise and a compelling character-driven movie and ends up somewhere in between.
#gimmick #works #Cinema #express
