The Idea of You (2024)

Direction: Michael Showalter
Country: USA 

The contemporary romantic comedy The Idea of You, starring Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine, is a terrible adaptation of Robinne Lee’s novel. It’s a corny, somewhat pathetic crowd pleaser that, besides being painfully predictable, fails to rise above a pedestrian formula that is beneath Hathaway’s charm.

Directed by Michael Showalter (The Big Sick, 2017; Spoiler Alert, 2022) and written by Jennifer Westfeldt and Showalter, the film follows Soléne (Hathaway), a 40-year-old art gallery director and single mother, who begins an unexpected romance with 24-year-old boy-band singer Hayes Campbell (Galitzine). While the story’s premise is plausible, it’s executed in a boring manner, laden with gooey pop music that is hard to endure. 

Content with the pink tonalities of its finale, the film is a bland addition to the already low-stakes tradition of rom-coms. It is hampered by flaccid attempts at humor and songs with no resonance whatsoever. Although there are some interesting ideas about age-related concerns, the writing is flat and filled with trite, flirtatious dialogue.

Determined to charm audiences, Showalter is ineptly uninspired. The film stumbles when it sacrifices specificity for generic sentiment, making it ultimately a waste of time.

Coup de Chance (2024)

Direction: Woody Allen
Country: USA

The prolific New Yorker Woody Allen returned to Paris for his 50th film, Coup de Chance, an anemic romance that morphs into an uninvolving detective comedy. With a fully French cast led  by Lou de Laâge and Melvil Poupaud as Fanny and Jean Fournier, respectively, the film follows them as a married couple whose relationship is suddenly thrown into turmoil when Fanny encounters Alain Aubert (Niels Schneider), a former high school friend and eternal admirer.

While the themes are recurrent in Allen’s filmography, the execution leaves much to be desired as the elements don’t quite mesh. Delivered without magic or brilliance, this is an ordinary masquerade superficially plotted, sloppily directed, unevenly acted, and whose attempting humor falls flat. While the conventional dialogue and mannered staging are quintessentially Allen-esque, they fail to elevate the film beyond its artificial Parisian backdrop, depicted with excessive sharpness and color. 

Coup de Chance is Woody Allen at his weakest, presenting every emotion and action as false, idiotic or frivolous. The film's saving grace lies in its incredibly groovy jazz soundtrack, featuring trumpeter Nat Adderley performing two of his own pieces: “Fortune’s Child” and “In the Bag”, along with a wonderful rendition of Herbie Hancock’s “Cantaloupe Island”.

Fallen Leaves (2023)

Direction: Aki Kaurismaki
Country: Finland

Aki Kaurismaki’s Fallen Leaves, titled after the original French song "Les Feuilles Mortes" composed by Kosma/Prévert, is an affecting art house romantic comedy and social reflection that resonates as a cry from the heart, ultimately radiating more warmth than desolation. With his unmistakable style, Kaurismaki strikes a wonderful tonal balance, infusing the narrative with deadpan humor, poignancy, and hope, offering an understated yet deeply affecting piece of amusement for an autumnal afternoon. Fallen Leaves can be viewed as the lost fourth installment in Kaurismaki’s proletariat trilogy, following Shadows in Paradise (1986), Ariel (1988), and The Match Factory Girl (1990).

At the heart of the story are two loners: Ansa (Alma Pöysti), a hard-working supermarket employee disturbed by war news on the radio and yearning for change in her daily routine, and Holappa (Jussi Vatanen), a depressed metalworker who appreciates solitude, vibrates with American rock n’ roll, and struggles with alcoholism. Their chance encounter at a local karaoke bar sparks an immediate attraction, but their differences become apparent as Ansa refuses to live with a drunk, while he rejects any form of authority. As they navigate obstacles and setbacks, fate seems to continually postpone their chance at happiness.

Grounded in realism without descending into sordidness, the film captures with honest eye a loving couple in their simple, everyday setting. There’s an empathetic embrace of retro and kitsch aesthetics, underscored by tragic songs and a cinematography as clear as crystal. The actors effortlessly embody their characters’ quirks with authenticity. Stripped of romantic idealism, love in Fallen Leaves is depicted as introspective, deep, and gentle - a plea for compassion and understanding that feels timeless. 

Kaurismaki emphasizes human resilience and the value of love with his filmmaking gestures, in an absolutely gorgeous and hugely affirming love story. It’s one of those pure delights that’s hard to resist.

Landscape With Invisible Hand (2023)

Direction: Cory Finley
Country: USA 

From Cory Finley - the director of Bad Education (2019) and Thoroughbreds (2017) - comes Landscape With Invisible Hand, an offbeat sci-fi romantic comedy drama with fitting social commentary but grappling with an uneven narrative pulse. The film, an adaptation of M.T. Anderson's novel of the same name, ventures down devious pathways, losing track of a potential cinematic provocation due to storytelling veering into self-indulgence and characters who often feel emotionally distant. It’s also visually restrained for a futuristic tale.

While the film doesn't falter on every level, boasting occasional successful black humor and delightful tensions between families, it generally lacks soul and struggles to connect with the theme of an alien seeking entertainment through teenage love. 

The director, concerned with charting trajectories of human subjugation and alien ascendancy, remains on the surface, weaving a crass hodgepodge of elements that don’t fully coalesce. However, respectable performances by Asante Blackk, Kylie Rogers, and Tiffany Haddish were a positive surprise, and that paid off in places.