Refocusing the romantic comedy by following Willa and Bill, ex-lovers who meet after many years, ‘What Happens Later’ sees the two people reconnect at an airport whilst snowed in in-transit. Reconfiguring the beats of a usual rom-com, the film examines the relationship between two people who have sine moved on and started new lives.
With a more mature take on two people (re)connecting, ‘What Happens Later’ sets off with Willa (Meg Ryan) and Bill (David Duchovny) each seeing each other at the airport separately and trying their damnedest to move away from the other to avoid an encounter. Quickly abandoning the slapstick, the movie forces the two, and the audience, to bare through awkwardness that invites the viewers to start to understand the long history between the two parties.
Uncovering one painful realization after the other, the film delivers an intriguing relationship history between Will and Bill, involving a failed pregnancy, an open relationship and ultimately a misunderstanding between their shared interest.
What the film does differently from its genre compatriots, is to explore the possibility of a relationship between two people that had already spent time together in their youth and had subsequently moved on and had separate lives and romances only to re-connect after all these years. Somewhat unbalanced though, Ryan’s second feature as a director falls short on delivering a poignant and compelling romance. The main characters do have a deep and intricate history, yet the majority of the film is spent on increasingly palling and mawkish exploits as Ryan and Duchovny make their way around the airport, guided by what starts off as a cutesy PA announcer, but soon too turns to an over-the-top trope that should have been used sparingly, if at all.
Dredging up and re-examining the demise of their relationship, Ryan and Duchovny do manage moments of genuine compassion and sincere feelings of loss and disappointment. As the story progresses however, their exchanges become somewhat trifling, bordering on irritating, drawing little sympathy for either but particularly Ryan’s Willa.
Coming together in the end as it is uncovered that Bill is not divorced and Willa is single, the conclusion suggests both are open to reigniting their relationship, yet there is too little there to suggest the two would fair much better the second time around, as the issues they had brought up for why they parted ways initially have scarcely been addressed.
A promising premise, ‘What Happens Later’ sets off from an intriguing position, trying to view the rom-com from an alternative angle, yet fumbles as it tries to re-apply the same tired tropes of the genre to something that could have been weightier and still retain a lighter tone when trying to lean into its comedic aspects. Not quite landing the humour or giving enough heft to it dramatic aspects. ‘What Happens Later’ fails to satisfy either genre fully and delivers a somewhat flavourless and restrained affair.
Score: 1/4
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