Newness

This film tells the story of a man and a woman, who use dating apps to meet others for fun with no strings attached.

That's the first ten minutes of the plot anyway. It appears that they constantly want newness in their love and sex lives. Yet, the story soon develops to another direction. It is clear that one of them is stuck in the past, while the other wants something but would not admit it. It is a brilliant portrayal of modern relationships. It even explores honesty to self and others. In addition, the lighting and the sets are consistently remarkable. Though the film is a little slow at times, it is still worth a watch.

This movie, to me, is not about how they meet, go through life or the open relationship. It is about that moment we always look for, the instant chemistry, which makes us euphoric and therefore happy. That bubble that everything is oke, everything is in line and I love somebody and that person loves me back in that moment.

The way this movie is shot, the high level of acting, it is as if you are watching your own life in some way. I think everybody can take moments from it and see what moments happen in their own life and how they react.

It is not intended as a movie to learn from, but just to hold a mirror up. It is not good or bad, just how we walk through life. To me, it is a good thing to keep realizing it.

If I had to pick one thing that stout out, I would say; that moment the bubble bursts. When you start to talk to each other and learn more about their way of thinking. At that point you are going to hear something you don't like and in an instant, your face changes and you need to deal with that emotion. That's when the euphoria stops and you try to get it back.

This review shows that this movie won't be for everybody, but watch past the first 10 minutes and get taken away by the emotions and reflect on yourself.

I almost made the mistake of switching the movie off 15 minutes in. Thankfully I didn't. Laia Costa in a very emotional scene captivated me as she did for the whole movie and the story finally really began. Even though we get obvious unsubtle punches against facebook and tinder it is not really about these technologies because they are just that. They don't force us to do anything. It is about generation "swipe left if you are bored". It is about running away from conflict thus running away from real relationships. Relationships are messy. They always have been always will be. But what makes them deep the work you put in. The best quote of the movie nails it: "love is two people not giving up on each other" as I didn't give up on this movie 15 minutes in being rewarded at the end.

There are many montages in this movie to move things along, all with soothing piano music that therefore must be touching and sweet, but in actuality, these characters are so one dimensional, selfish, and unlikeable that you end up not caring if they end up together. I get that it's trying to be a look at millennial dating, but there's literally nothing beyond the "sex" level here. No interesting conversations, no intelligent dialogue, nothing beyond just sex. I would say it was a let down, but I had no expectations, so it was ok-ish.

For a movie that has relationship written all over it in the "modern era" (that is with cell phones and apps to find "love"), this really could be called a modern day love story. So while you could compare it to "Love", this is not as explicit as that (though you will have some nudiy in this too), but gets more involved into the characters.

One set up shows closeness physically, but characters being as far apart as possible. It could have gone wrong, too cliche, but the symbolism of it really hits home (no pun intended). The movie generally has quite a few themes, with "newness" being one of them. The pleasure one has to enjoy that. But even with one character living in the past, the connection to "new" is still there. The other character may not want anything newer, but that plays into the theme too. Especially when things get mixed up.

The movie tries to analyze a bit and give us a look into the psyche, but it not a psychological study. You can read a couple of things into it, but it does try to stay in the drama department and the general flow of the movie. Good themes, good acting and a good script about a ... new sort of love story