‘What happens next’ (2024), review | Relive Meg Ryan’s rom-coms, but the resulting movie zombie isn’t pretty to watch

For years, Hollywood has closed itself off to romantic comedies, believing that It was a genre that brought more disasters at the box office than joys. And yet, everything comes back, and for some time now films like ‘Anyone But You’, ‘No Bad Vibes’ or ‘The Specialist’ have shown that romance never went away: it just needed a coat of paint to update itself. the new times and become attractive again to a new audience. Clearly, Meg Ryan hasn’t received the circular, because ‘What happens next’ is born already worn out.

I can’t believe it

One of my favorite romantic comedies (and, why not say it, my movies) is ‘No Controls’, the marvel by Borja Cobeaga in which An ex-couple has to live in the same hotel after their flights are canceled by a snow storm. She has slapstick, unforgettable characters (that Juancarlitros) and a soul stuck in the memory of a Casiotone. With a very similar argument, Meg Ryan has made the exact opposite of the Spanish film: ‘Night Out’ humor, flat characters and no hint of charisma along the way.

‘What Happens Next’ is Ryan’s return to romantic comedies after 14 years (the previous one was the forgettable ‘Trapped by Love’). In the 90s she was the absolute queen of the genre, but now, at 62 years old, He has not been able to put the pieces of the puzzle back together.. It’s not an issue of ageism: you can make a good rom-com past the age of 60 (there’s ‘Mamma mia!’), but the actress has co-written and directed a film that is born aged, as if she were too lazy to go crawling from scene to scene and, once raised, I didn’t know what else to do to keep the flame of interest alive in the viewer.

David Duchovny and Meg Ryan’s characters are simple carcasses without emotions that tell their lives in a forced way, by pure script, and trying to bring a constant tear to a viewer who, fed up with his constant goodbyes, just wants this 100-minute walk through the desert (which feels like three hours) to end once and for all. What the film tells could work not in short film format, but in a special Superbowl advertisement. It is a constant passing of minutes peering into nothingness, in every sense.

Please don’t laugh

‘What Happens Next’ is a terribly cheap movie (it cost $3 million that it barely made back in theaters), and it shows. The vast majority of it takes place in an airport, yes, but specifically in indeterminate spaces in different waiting rooms for which you only need to place seats and a couple of tables. In fact, it doesn’t even need more actors: the script justifies that If both of them are spending that night at the airport it is due to an undetermined “magic”and with that he believes that any trick to reduce production costs is valid.

In fact, the best gags in the film come from the public address announcements that directly answer his questions without any justification: I couldn’t help but laugh, no matter how much I sensed that It is not an embrace of absurd comedy, but rather another piece of creative laziness. The rest of the humor is based on complaining about the modern age and committing the madness of getting into an airport buggy and spinning slowly. If that’s what you expect in a movie, you’re in luck. Of course, don’t trust yourself: at any time, apparent humor can take an unexpected leap towards drama catching you totally off guard.

Suddenly, Duchovny and Ryan, supposedly antagonistic, They find moments of truth in their shared past.. On their own, and even using clearly artificial mechanisms, these moments of intimacy where they explain what has happened in the years they have not seen each other and the reason why their relationship broke down, can work. What’s more: they suggest that There are some characters under that layer of sobriety that is so static and boring. like the direction of the film. Sadly, they don’t last long enough to get us excited.

It is paradoxical that ‘What happens next’ takes place during a night in an airport and It sits, as it is, like a night at the airport: It is uncomfortable, boring, long, dark, there is nothing to do and only some specific moments of fun make you think that one day you will remember it with some fondness. It is a pleasure to see that Meg Ryan dares to return to the genre that made her the queen of the 90s. Now please have someone write and direct instead.

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