It Had to Be You

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As usual, I don't understand the reviews on this site. This movie was much much better than the rating listed! Delightfully written, acted and the chemistry between the two leads was so believable. I'm pretty jaded about romance stories, but I was quietly cheering at the end! Must see!

Stars Cristin Millioti and Dan Soder. When sonia (almost) gets an unexpected marriage proposal, she gathers her friends to talk about it. Is she ready to be married? Some of her friends already are. Clearly, chris the boyfriend is ready. But we the viewers don't know anything about them yet, so we're not really invested. A lot of time spent on music, since the director seems to come from a music background. Autobiographical? Sonia seems to want more out of life, but she's not quite sure what that is. Chris is satisfied with his job and with their life, but after listening to his friends, he pushes sonia to make up her mind. Things move pretty slowly. But... one of the great things in this film is that sonia's not afraid to talk about the little embarrassing things in everyday life. Ups and downs. It's okay. Showing on roku channel. Directed by Sasha Gordon, directing her first full length film. Has won a bunch of film fest awards.

Cristin Milioti is so quirkily endearing in the lead role that she makes it easy to just go with the airy tale. It's an okay romcom about a woman afraid of not realizing her potential, with the underlying clichéd storyline that regardless of who she thinks she wants to be, her one true happiness is standing right next to her. The film starts with a focus on why a woman should want to define herself independently, instead of through her marriage to a man and ends with the typical romantic notion of "it had to be you" for me to be truly happy. The cast are mostly good, Cristin is great and if you like romantic happy endings, you should enjoy this film.

If you thought this film was going end any other way, you are hysterical. The film is about finding the romantic heroine (or hero) in ourselves. Especially when we don't see ourselves as fitting the bill. Is it a shame that there isn't a character in the film who outright rejects the notion of marriage and is celebrated for it? Maybe.... but that's another film. This film celebrates the Romantic Heroine in whatever form she takes and actively encourages us to notice where we are getting our ideas about who she is from.... But subtly and more entertaining than how I just put it.

I've just finished this film, and with tears running down my cheeks from the feel good-ness of it all, I'll attempt to type out this review...if you're a hopeless romantic, or idealist, this movie's for you. As I am one, if not both of those, I see the takeaway (that many of the reviewers here seem to be missing the point of) being that you can't spend all of your time and efforts romanticizing or idealizing a perfect life or even the 'perfect' you, because you miss out on the real one when you do. Plus, as in the case of the movie, when you do romanticize your life or who you could be, you might miss out on something beautiful that's a part of your life already. It's lovingly quirky, the cinematography is wonderful, the soundtrack is lovely, the story is detailed, the characters are not one-dimensional, there's a naturalness between the characters and overall humanness that you can just feel throughout the film. And overall it's just a really sweet movie about a girl who's trying to figure out her life and her relationship. Give it a shot, you might really like it like I did :)

Interesting characters. Great acting. Great story. Real people in real situations. And a liberal dose of disappointment, misunderstanding, and love. What more could you want? Probably advisable to have a box of Kleenex handy.