SAY THAT YOU LOVE ME // A FILM REVIEW OF "LOVE TYPE D"
LOVE TYPE D, the new romantic comedy with a sci-fi twist from Sasha Collington, has spent the Pandemic jumping from festival to festival and now is finally available to see on demand. It stars Maeve Dermody as Frankie, a 30-something Londoner who has had a lot of bad luck in love. Her latest relationship was with Thomas (Oliver Farnworth) and he's, well, just not that into her. So much, in fact, that he has his younger 11-year-old brother Wilber (Rory Stroud) show up at their latest date (in a fancy restaurant no less) and break up with her. Thomas thinks it's a clean cut break, but Frankie knows that it's cruel and baffling, but instead of being angry she finds that she can't get over him. She wants him back and wants to know why she's been so bad at love all of her life.
She decides to get some answer from the younger brother Wilber, who is 11-going on 70. He's a kid genius, far ahead of his time and very interested in science and experiments. He feels for Frankie, who's clearly resorting to desperate measures by going to him, and he tells her of a newly found gene that he's read about. It's a gene that is now found in people that can actually determine if that person is the forever dumpee or the dumper. Willing to grab onto anything, she clings to this information and immediately sets herself up with Epigenetica, the company who's behind the "science" of it all, to get herself tested. It's a quirky and far-reaching set up, one that asks you to simply give into it and enjoy the silly ride. What she finds out is this: she is indeed one of the forever dumped and with Wilber acting as sort of a brainiac child guide, she puts together a plan: if she can find every person who has dumped her and dump them now, she can possibly reverse her bad luck and come out of the forever dumped catagory.
LOVE TYPE D is a very silly and fun film, with a lot of great supporting turns (Rory Stroud steals every scene that he's in) that takes a bit of blind faith to go along with the "science" behind it. Writer/director Sasha Collington has a sharp eye for witty banter and clever situations. She also, however, has a few missteps along the way, such as making a potential date for Frankie (Dan Starkey) an object for the audience to make fun of because he's short and balding, which just feels kinda gross. There's also the issue of the main character of Frankie, who is essentially a stalker. No, she is a stalker and had it been a male lead, I feel like this would be less of a light comedy and more of a cautionary tale. Frankie does grow and learn, but she never really understands why her stalking and self-destructive path was bad; it's simply played for laughs. The casting throughout the film is primarily very strong and our heroine, played by Maeve Dermody, turns in a charming performance but the character itself (along with her love interest of Thomas) are rather boring (with the exception of a clever singing sequence). But it's not the leads that you'll remember from this film, it's the winning ensemble and secondary characters that create the real magic in this world and, along with the often very funny script, it comes out as an unexpected surprise for these hot summer months.
GRADE: B
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY Sasha Collington STARRING Maeve Dermody, Oliver Farnworth, Rory Stroud, Tovah Feldshuh AVAILABLE ON DEMAND JULY 9TH.