Here's hoping you caught the clever irony in my title. I spent all of 4 seconds coming up with it. Yes this is a story about the impending end of the world, but in lieu of robot zombies from outer space or apocalyptic tidal waves, it cheekily focuses on the simplistic story of a guy (named Rick) who is trying to fall in love.
If I lost you already I'll spell out the premise. God is disgusted with the direction of humankind and decrees that unless he can have his faith in humans renewed he's going to vaporize the planet. In order to have his faith renewed he spells out a simple task. Rick must fall in love within 2 months.
It sounds like a madcap premise full of wacky supernatural antics, along the lines of other comedies about gods & devils such as "Bruce Almighty", "Bedazzled" or the one that started them all, "Oh God!" but this film takes a surprisingly different approach which may feel like a let-down at first, but ultimately I think it works. The approach is that, after setting up the premise in the 1st scene, the movie downshifts into a very mundane, minimalistic story about a guy trying to fall in love. No bells, no whistles. He's just trying to fall in love. However we have the impending threat of the end of days hanging over his shoulder so that adds a surreal sense of urgency to his plan.
It's important that you swallow this approach. If you're expecting a lot of crazy hijinks involving the parting of the Red Seas and such, you'll be sorely disappointed. The film is extremely minimalistic (of course shot on a low budget, probably 1% the budget of those Hollywood blockbusters I mentioned), and at times it feels like it could easily be adapted into a great stage play. That's how minimal it is. The script & characters carry the entire production. There are some nice witty zingers in the script, and of course God himself (played by writer/director Joe Benedetto) has a hilarious, sarcastic, deadpan New Yorker portrayal of the almighty, somewhat reminiscent of Raymond in Everyone Loves Raymond. Our hero Rick is played by Jonathan Michael Weber in the vein of a hopelessly superficial playboy who needs to come to grips with his heart, not his private parts. Along the way, Rick is helped by his pseudo guardian angel Serena (Victoria Gilette) who is sort of like Rick's wingman, and the 2 of them have some great banter that keeps the story fresh. The target of Rick's affections is Candace (Ashley C Williams) who plays a brainiac who is way out of Rick's league. The rest of the film is rounded out with a steady stream of Rick's ex-girlfriends and peripheral prospects, all of whom seem to have have the combined IQ of their bra sizes.
This is definitely a fun flick, your basic script-driven romcom, but with the interesting spin of having the world end because God is annoyed that after millions of years of evolution, people can't text in complete sentences. LOL, right?
Of course bear in mind that this is a micro budget flick, so don't expect the Hollywood gloss. But if you are looking for an offbeat, indie romcom that shakes up the standard formula, then this is your flick.
