Things Like This

I wanted to love this movie - I can't say I loved it, but I did like it. It would've made a great Netflix movie Such a good opportunity missed. This could have been great, but it felt unbelievable the characters were great but like stated before it was a bit less realistic and believable. I felt the two leads were very believable - for Joey Zack that comes from his A+ acting, for the other Zack I feel it was probably because his character was based on himself more or less and he was a little annoying 😩. In scenes together it was clear that there were two very different levels of acting going on. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed the movie.

Look, I like a gay rom-com featuring a plus-size guy in the lead as much as anyone, but why, oh, why does that character have to be so annoying?

What's even more annoying than the character is the fact that the guy who plays him also wrote and directed the movie. I guess if you're gonna write a movie to star yourself, it might as well be a fantasy in which you land the hot guy no matter how much of a loser you are.

Writer-director-actor Max Talisman plays Zach, who after being dumped by one hottie, immediately meets-cute with another (well as cute as ordering and downing a drink you know you can't pay for can be) - coincidentally also named Zach (Joey Pollari) - and, despite many complications, ends landing him after serenading him at his sister's high school prom.

Don't ask.

While the script has a few nice moments, and some veteran actors have a few nice moments, too (Eric Roberts, Barbara Barrie), it's tough to get past the protagonist being a wastrel/jerk.

It's not that wastrels don't deserve to find love (I still hope to some day), it's just that I don't need to sit in a theater and watch it.

Neither do you.

There's a rule in screenwriting that if you're going to have a character who's a bit extra/annoying/difficult, they need to do something unquestionably good early into the script, like saving a cat. That never happens for either of the two romantic leads. One is annoying, the other is slightly less annoying... and while I want more plus-size representation in queer cinema, certainly we can do better than this. Apart from making each other laugh, I never understood why either of them found the other attractive. I only realized that one of the actors who plays the romantic lead also wrote and starred in it when we got to the end. So... was this supposed to be some sort of fantasy about getting the hottie? But the thing is, the supposed "hottie" wasn't that attractive because he's such a jerk to the people around him. We can do better than this...

It's a bummer...this had a lot of the right pieces to be really special.

I feel like I spent the whole movie thinking it was one step away from being good. It was repeatedly close. Started out fine and just went downhill. Felt like it filmed the first draft. Decent production quality but wow did it need a second draft. Or at least another one. And a different director. Ouch. Not everyone should direct their own script. Someone else needs to push the actors to unexpected places...or sometimes rein them in. Create a world and a tone. This didn't manage either.

Will be interesting to see if he's able to make another film.

Such a good opportunity missed. This could have been great, but it felt unbelievable and contrived. I did wonder if it was written by someone with autism because it doesn't really seem aware of any social cues about how life works.

This isn't believable in the slightest. Bit of a fantasy world of some gay teen, with no grounding in reality. Oh look, a sexy man going through some stuff, being vulnerable, falling for someone not conventionally attractive. Always with the tormented gay character. Come on, we really can do better these days. This isn't the 90s any more where we just lap up any old tosh because of 'representation'. Needs a better script, more believable characters and a stronger base. How did this film even get made?