David Duchovny | A Screenwriters Perspective: Current and Past Movies.

There are several good aspects to Meg Ryan’s new movie “What Happens Later”. During the pandemic Ryan collaborated with two other screenwriters and wrote a screenplay about a man and a woman, meeting in a regional airport after they broke up over 25 years earlier. It took courage for Ryan to create a screenplay where there are only two actors, Willa, played by Meg Ryan, and Bill, played by David Duchovny. This entire movie is a conversation inside an airport that is shutting down due to a major snowstorm where the two characters finally figure out what really went wrong with their relationship so long ago. The only other time in recent memory that any movie has been about only two characters and a 2-hour conversation between them is “Before Sunrise”, 1995 and “Before Sunset”, 2004, starring Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke.

Around the end of the 75% mark, there is a major revelation about a misunderstanding between Bill and Willa is finally revealed. Without this one misunderstanding 25 years earlier Bill and Willa might never have broken up. The message of this best part of this film “in a relationship, communication is everything”.

Most of the dialogue in this very unusual film is good, but some other parts do not work, including the airport intercom worker who at times has an ongoing conversation with Bill and Willa. This idea of having a conversation with the airport intercom did not work and reduced the realism of the story.

The acting with Duchovny and Ryan is very good throughout this film is very good and after a long layoff and a Hollywood career high and low like Ryan has lived through, it is good to see her back in a movie again. I hope, despite the relatively low ratings for this film, that Ryan can make a movie comeback.

Unfortunately, the Rotten Tomatoes rating for this movie is a low 51%, with my rating 70% and a marginal recommendation, mainly for the courage to make this film and the dialogue.

The new Netflix movie “You People” has a positive aspect – in trying to address the awkward guilt that white people sometimes have with black people and the awkward resentment that some black people have toward white people. Most of this awkwardness is made humorous – and some of this works, some of this does not work. The main negative aspect of this screenplay, co-wrote by Jonah Hill is that the relationship between Jewish and overweight Jonah Hill, who plays Ezra, and Lauren London who plays Amira is not at all believable.

This story is kind of like an attempted comedic version of “Guess Who is Coming to Dinner”, released in 1967, starring Sydney Potier, Spenser Tracy, and Katherine Hepburn. It is not fair to compare these two movies, mainly because the eras between 55 years ago and now are so different, but the main reason is that Guess Who is Coming to Dinner is a drama and You People is a comedy.

The other flaw here is that Eddie Murphy is in this movie and is never really funny. Murphy comes off as both bored and bland throughout his entire role. This is a big problem when your main comedic well-known star is never funny. Murphy plays Amira’s father Akbar, and along with Ezra’s mother Shelly, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus – they create the main obstacles in the dating and marriage of Ezra and Amira. Through rude comments by both of them, and in the case of Shelly, her trying too hard to understand and appreciate black people, comes off as bigoted rather than supportive. Some of this is funny, but too much of this can be just awkward, and too awkward is never funny.

The acting in this light comedy is mostly good and includes David Duchovny, who pulls off the most awkward scene where he tries to sing at a piano – even though his singing is extremely off-key. Duchovny seems very out of place in this role. Nia Long plays Fatima, Amira’s mother, and also seems like she is barely in this movie mostly sleepwalking through her role.

Despite the flaws, this movie has enough positive aspects including message, and funny moments to give it a passable review and a mild recommendation. The Rotten Tomatoes rating of only 45 is once again, dead wrong.