Dating and New York (2021)

Dating and New York (2021)

Written, Directed and Produced by: Jonah Feingold
Streaming on Amazon Prime Video. 

It's a story of dating in the modern world, it's an age old story of two people meeting, not wanting to catch feelings but they end up. However, the film has an interesting tone, the way it's shot and edited. It has a Wes Anderson-esque touch to the way it's cut and the way voice over is used. There's Milo and Wendy, two people who meet on a dating app, they hook up and then decide to stay in a friends with benefits space - where can "let them be single but not lonely". And all their friends say that this is not going to end well and that one of them is going to have their heart broken. They deny it. Slowly, they start hanging out, they start talking to each other and spending time, and of course, the inevitable happens. Milo catches feelings, and I expected that he's the one who is going to catch feelings first. 

Milo is a very interesting character, even his outlook has a lot of quirks. His curly hair, his costumes, etc. He has that vulnerable side in him intact. Wendy is more outgoing, and she seems more strong but then as Milo points out, she is acting out of fear. She is afraid to be loved, because deep down she thinks she isn't good enough for someone to consistently love her. She says that if we end up dating, it'll end up in you despising me. That tells about what she thinks of her. I would have loved the film to end where both of them stay apart, for some reason, love stories hit harder if they don't end up together - perhaps for the same reason why Wendy is afraid to be together - unrequited love is more romantic for some weird reason. Perhaps self sabotaging tendencies.