Choose Love review – interactive Netflix romcom is a gimmick too far
In theory, an interactive romcom in which you choose the suitor, and the confessions or evasions to get to them, sounds like a good idea. Who hasn’t yelled “not him!” or “don’t do that” at the screen when bemoaning a misguided protagonist’s choices? Choose Love, Netflix’s romcom entry into its nascent interactive oeuvre (following the Black Mirror episode Bandersnatch in 2019), at least tries to makes its choices seem organic to a theoretical audience’s different tastes in romantic interests (stable and sincere, passionate and nostalgic, or flirtatious and spontaneous?). But as proof of a concept that sounds admittedly like a consultant’s pitch to streaming services, it struggles to feel at all like a genuine story.
To be fair to the director Stuart McDonald and the screenwriter Josann McGibbon, who had to conceive of an impressive number of twists and outcomes (one per suitor, plus the option of going solo), there may be no way to overcome my distaste for having to make decisions for Cami (Laura Marano), a twentysomething audio producer with ennui for both her career and long-term relationship with Paul (Greek’s Scott Michael Foster). Then again, there’s nothing much to Cami beyond unwavering perkiness, a wardrobe that feels bizarrely out of time (or, at least, more suited for 2014) and the promise from a tarot reader of three different men to imminently choose from.
Regardless of a few inconsequential decisions (truth or dare; advise her niece to defend herself from a bully or brush it off), you’ll meet them. There’s Paul, of course, a steady divorce lawyer who’s good with kids and down for marriage. There’s Jack (Jordi Webber),
Cami’s model-gorgeous high-school ex who has miraculously reappeared in LA after devoting himself to international humanitarian causes. And then there’s Rex (Avan Jogia with a teetering British accent), a famous musician in the lane of Rod Stewart parody, and the only option with whom there seems to be any chemistry (thank God there’s a choice, I guess?). Each nominally represents a different value – Paul is commitment, Rex is risk and Jack is … passion? – and not much else, as the texturing of Cami’s life and character has the feel of cardboard.
The aesthetic is similarly chintzy, the type of flatly lit and oversaturated style we’ve come to associate with a certain swath of Netflix originals. The overdrawn acting and stakes-less swooning feel more in line with a tween-aiming Disney movie than a romcom (or maybe that’s my association, as both Marano and Jogia’s careers originated at the network; the film is rated PG). One can sense Marano’s noble effort to sell this set-up, as she toggles between wide-eyed shock to furrowed brow to a number of winking fourth-wall asides asking us to make her decision. But there’s little to sell, and the interactive element eliminates the draw of mindless couch fare.
I will give points for effort and for entertaining the prospect of a female protagonist ultimately choosing to go solo, but the concept of an interactive romcom, at least of this Netflix variety, feels dead on arrival. Fizzy romcoms often rely on a suspension of both reality and judgment, and importantly on the quirks and tangled messes of character. Does Cami stick with Paul and lean into the solidity of long-term love? Does she follow the jolt of high-school nostalgia and see what could’ve been with Jack? (And also help impoverished children, or something?) Does she take a bet on her dreams and trying singing with Rex? None of it really matters if I’m in the driver’s seat. I watch a romcom to see a character tumble through an unforeseen series of choices and fall under a spell, not to have the lead be a vessel for myself.
Choose Love, for all its intentions of originality, ultimately feels like another poor conclusion of algorithmic content. Already we’re drowning in decisions, endless options tailored to our viewing habits, our history, our taste. Now oppression of choice has entered the frame, and it’s not fun.
Choose Love is now available on Netflix
– when the show’s house style imitates exactly that woozy, unwieldy Gilliam sensibility, using occasional fisheye lenses and unceasing handheld low-angle close-ups. Though the show notably lacks the visionary thrills of vintage Gilliam, its garishness is pleasingly unlike much else on TV. And just as the actors’ performance styles sometimes clash, the overall imagination of One Piece competes with this particular iteration’s budget, which appears to be lavish but perhaps still not quite enough. Some settings (a sort-of gothic castle, site of a two-episode detour) and details (radios and loudspeakers only exist when fed through oversized snails, depicted via puppetry) make better use of this mishmash quality than others (like some unconvincing high-seas battles).
As the season goes on, Luffy’s cohort eventually grows to include the similarly excitable Usopp (Jacob Romero Gibson), a marksman and fabulist with pirate lineage; and Sanji (Taz Skylar), an ambitious chef/martial artist, whose origin is a late-breaking season highlight. In contemporary streaming style, long stretches of the first season focus on set-up that would have once been consigned to perhaps a double-length pilot episode. With so much backstory and table-setting, the time for episodic adventuring winds up limited – a shame, because the show’s fresh-faced ensemble and general weirdness would be a good fit for a quest-of-the-week format.
When One Piece attempts to pull together its disparate elements into a grander overarching theme, it tries to address the unwillingness of an older generation to cede their power to younger ones; when chased with some kidlit-style malarkey about the importance of following dreams, it all comes across as pretty glib. The recent One Piece Film: Red is, on the balance, way weirder and more manic – yet also, within its mania, a more potent emotional experience, too. Maybe it’s poor luck of the draw on villains; the bad guy in Red is deeply empathetic, more misguided than mastermind, while one of the ongoing baddies of the Netflix series is a self-disassembling pirate called Buggy the Clown. Yet even in the face of such lost-in-translation flights of fancy, there remains something oddly enjoyable about One Piece’s conceptual loopiness and its Hot Topic optimism, even when it looks like half-measures. To call it truly good would be a stretch worthy of Monkey D Luffy’s rubbery limbs. To call it dull, however, would be outright dishonesty.
One Piece is now available on Netflix