In What Happens Later, former married couple, Bill and Willa Davis are midway through separate journeys when they become delayed at the same airport. Bill is attempting to get to Austin, Willa is trying to fly to Boston, but both are battling against a huge winter storm which has caused every flight to either become cancelled or delayed.
After bumping into each other while waiting for their connecting flights, the pair get into a conversation. As they talk, they begin to discuss the past, including the highs and lows of their relationship.
With the weather showing no signs of improvement, Bill and Willa become stuck at the airport for the foreseeable future. Throughout the entirety of their stay, they remain in each others’ company, continuing their discussion about the past.
Directed by Meg Ryan, and based on Steven Dietz’s book Shooting Star, What Happens Later is a romantic comedy about two ex-lovers who have a random encounter after being estranged for years. Meg Ryan stars in the movie alongside David Duchovny, and the film arrives in UK cinemas on Friday 15th December.
In terms of its subject matter, and its use of older actors (both Ryan and Duchovny are in their 60s), What Happens Later is a valiant attempt at updating the standard rom-com format. The film isn’t about two young people meeting and falling in love, it’s about two older people who were once in love, but who went their separate ways and who are now forced together to reflect on what could have been.
But while the premise of What Happens Later isn’t bad, and some of the conversations and interactions between Bill and Willa are mildly diverting, the film falls apart in the execution. The chemistry between Ryan and Duchovny is non-existent, there’s some weird supernatural voice in the movie which goes unexplained, and the general staging of the film greatly impacts the flow of the story, and it robs the film of any energy, excitement, or general sparkle.
Essentially the picture is a series of conversations between Ryan and Duchovny in different sections of the airport. One discussion takes place by the gate, another in the bar, one by a window, and so on and so on.
If you’ve ever sat in an airport waiting for a delayed plane, making conversation with anyone and everyone to pass the time, you’ll know it’s not a very dynamic situation. Well, that’s exactly the same problem with What Happens Later – the setting is very dull and once you’ve seen one part of the airport, you’ve kind of seen it all.
It then doesn’t help that Ryan and Duchovny don’t ever feel like they share a connection. Oh, the script might tell you they do, but that’s not reflected on screen.
Some of their conversations are fine, but at no point does it feel like these two have ever (or would ever), embark on a romantic relationship. Duchovny looks half-asleep at least half of the time, Ryan is generally unlikeable, and this makes it difficult to connect with either of them on any level.
What also doesn’t improve matters is the fact that for the entirety of the movie, we are spent in the company of Bill and Willa. With the exception of a strange voice, which blasts over the airport PA system, the pair don’t really interact with anyone else and this becomes tiresome very quickly.
And as for the PA voice, what the heck is this supposed to be?! Cosmic guidance? The voice of God? A shared hallucination between Bill and Willa, brought on by extreme weather, bad writing, and the stark reality of being stuck in a fairly unpopulated airport?!
Damned if I know.
Putting the film’s problems to one side, What Happens Later does at least try something different with the rom-com format, and it mostly manages to sidestep many of the obvious genre traits. The ending is also far less predictable than the set-up suggests, and there is something heartfelt in the idea of these two former lovers sharing a brief moment in time.
All of the above does help the film recover from many of its shortfalls, but unfortunately it doesn’t change the fact What Happens Later is riddled with problems. These problems maybe overlooked if you’re a huge rom-com fan and you want something new, but for general audiences it’s simply not going to work.
What Happens Later tries, and gets some recognition for its attempts to do something different, but ultimately it doesn’t land in the way it should. Unless you have a strong desire to spend 100+ minutes trapped in an airport with Meg Ryan and David Duchovny, you may want to watch something else.
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