The hardest thing to do it seems, in film, is to find originality. A new idea. A new vision.
Newness.
When I first started this film, my immediate thought was to wonder why the camera lens brought such a blue hue to the picture. Why was the light dampened in such a way the meant daytime seemed closer to night most often?
Because the night was when the city slept, somewhat, but also signalled a kind of intimacy that only comes between people.
What I liked from the onset was the use of technology and specifically a dating app that allowed anyone and everyone to seek and find the kind of relationship they wanted. Casual. No-strings. Open. In a relationship. Serious.
No fuss. No shuffling around the point. Just simple confidence in the form of technology so it at least broke the, metaphorical, ice of the situation and that the two individuals were on the same page.
Thats what struck me first, was that modern love isn’t anywhere close to the old-film love that we gather from classics such as The Notebook or Love Actually. Instead it’s new, exciting and something that is meant to be explored and not dramatised as something you fall into or out of.
It’s exploring a path you can’t see the end of and following it for the thrill of wondering about the destination.
Thats the impression I got on meeting Martin (Nicholas Hoult) and Gabriella (Laia Costa) in that people can meet this way and its seen as ‘normal’ in the age of phones and social media.
Now with characters, its key to know that only good story telling ends with you questioning either yourself or the characters and deciding whether you unconditionally like their choices or dislike them. The balance is the in-between.
This is what, Director, Drake Doremus and screenplay writer, Ben York Jones, do best. I was thoroughly questioning my own emotions by the time the credits rolled around.
From meeting with a casual hook up in mind, Martin and Gabriella end the night by wanting to know more about the other while wandering past the night lights of LA until the early hours before sleeping together. The intimacy and understanding between these two characters is rare since vulnerability with strangers is hard to act in an age of anonymity and caution.
Then what is harder, still, to understand is the feelings associated with the beginnings of a relationship; one which neither character expected, let alone wanted, but end up wanting as the excitement of more time together beckons and breakfast dates turn into dinner dates and soon its double dates with, already married, friends and meeting parents who expose certain hard truths and secrets that weren’t shared.
The music crescendos at this point and makes you feel as though you aren’t sitting in your living room but instead, are living the lives of the character before you. Every note a moment made, a memory re-lived, a tear cried, a hand held.
This film is in many ways an elegy to modern love because it’s wholly imperfect. Martin: pharmacist by day, dark and melancholy soul by night. Gabriella: physical therapist’s assistant by day, lonely heart seeking a need to be needed by night. The pair are perfect for each other in many ways as Doremus helps us discover by their physical need and emotional necessity to be together, but in other ways shows the flaws, such as their lack of wanting commitment in the age of exploration and want to adventure into new ways to be together since, from the onset, both adults cannot stand the idea of conformity or routine.
“I need constant Newness.”
This need for newness is one I believe is within all of us. A hunger for more than what the everyday has to offer and a desire to be different in a world that is trying so hard to make us all the same. This is what this cinematic masterpiece looks into throughout the tensions of new relationships, beginning online to ending when adventure and curiosity goes too far. When Polyamory isn’t seen as a long term solution to finding newness anymore because in reality we all just want someone, one person, to see us differently from the rest. To be in the middle of the street in the middle of a world filled with other you’s that differ only slightly and say “I choose you. I see you. I accept you for who you are.”
The use of blue also seems to highlight the coldness of daylight in exposing the truths of life. The truth that Gabriella doesn’t want to see other people anymore or the Martin wished he’d opened up earlier about his past with his ex-wife and his mothers’ illness. Truths that can only be exposed with time rather than words.
Sometimes it takes falling apart into other people for you to realise that you miss the original person you shared things with. And, it also takes a gentle nudge from observing friends and family to see your own shortcomings in the long term before you unlock the door and see the person you know you can’t live without, in a world that somehow keeps you apart for a while.
‘Newness‘, is in one word, enrapturing.
It enlightened me to see that love is so much more nowadays than it was or is perceived in films. I know that these aren’t realistic and mostly we realise that in the back of our minds, but once or twice the thought of idealised love is one we long for. Instead we are given works of art such as ‘Newness‘ in depicting what can only be the real love we see today.
No flowers. No large musical numbers. No shouted confessions on doorsteps or rain kisses.
Just two people, in a brick walled apartment in LA on a sunny morning crying and apologising for pushing the other away before hugging and realising that this isn’t someone they want to leave their side.
Ever.
For Wanderers and Wonderers 