From innocence to experience
There’s something a little disingenuous in a movie that name-checks Nora Ephron and the characters Harry and Sally but not Carrie Bradshaw, especially when the lead character is writing a column that may as well be called Sex and the University.
In fact, there’s something just a little off in writer/ director Carly Ann Stone’s feature debut. Maybe it’s the way the setting is postsecondary, but the emotions and concerns seem distinctly high school. Perhaps it’s due to characters that pop in and out of the narrative wings as needed, their motivations made malleable by circumstance.
But there’s still much to admire, starting with the winsome performance of Jessica Barden as Blake, whose sex column is suffering from the fact that she isn’t having much — until a chance encounter introduces her to the “sugar lifestyle,” also known as a no-strings relationship in which the (older) man gets sex, while the woman gets gifts. It’s not prostitution, say its proponents, and the fact that it includes emotional intimacy complicates things, both in theory and practice.
Timm Sharp plays Ian, the daddy in this sugary concoction, although I found him consistently outshone by Blake’s roomie/bestie Nikki (Hayley Law). “We hated each other for the first few months,” Nikki says of their relationship. “Then Philip Seymour Hoffman died.” It’s one of those lines that makes sense precisely because it doesn’t. And when Blake’s lover gives her a moped, Nikki immediately calls it her “ho-ped.”
Clever writing and a solid lead actor will only take you so far, but that might just be far enough for this lighthearted feature. The New Romantic isn’t, you know, The One, but if you decide to take it in, the best advice I can give is to love the film you’re with.∫∫∫