Pretend That You Love Me (2020)
After a 5-year relationship (*friendship included) with a girl I dated, I was somewhat lost. There wasn't anything particularly wrong with us, but we were becoming complacent with ourselves within the relationship. She was a lovely girl and chose me every day, but unfortunately.. I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted anymore and was afraid we'd repeat our parents' cycles (divorce) with that feeling seeded deeply within my heart. I began taking our small moments for granted. Even my body was rejecting her hugs. I became less of a partner and more of an individual. The threads tying our identities together began to unwind.
I wasn't sure if I'd be happy continuing the relationship, but I hastily decided it'd be best for us just to move on - so I broke up with her and hoped for the best (lovingly, for both of us). I met someone shortly after, but they didn't seem to see me the same way I saw them; however, it wasn't obvious at first as words (and feelings) were reciprocated. I found out a lot. The person wasn't who I believed they were. They were hurt - I could see it in their eyes. Ah, but love is blinding - and the red flags? They become small coincidences, particularly when piled up.
Shortly after that, I traveled quite a bit and made a promise myself to open myself up even more to people and experiences. I ran the Boston Marathon while bunking with 3 strangers from around the globe, I met a Boston local who showed me around town (recreating "Before Sunrise"), I met another group of strangers in Vermont for another Marathon (one of which was an 80+-year-old who had a particularly interesting story about love, pain, and the marathon community), and countless other adventures all within this past year. My goal of being open to experiences? Fulfilled for the year. I was searching - and finding adventure. Meeting new people? That's another story.
I mean, it happened, but much like this film, it was as if I was searching for something that doesn't exist. Halfway through the film, Joel asks one of the women if she believes in "a perfect love." She responds with, "I think that's the wrong question."
After all, whether it was Joel in this moment or his "character," we're both just searching for a glimmer of love and companionship while taking on a variety of life's hardships.
A lot of this film felt off for me. One time I came across a woman who told me she was looking for guys to meet to experience and write a character in her book about before moving onto the next. At first, I thought this film was that in a much more innocent context; however, parts felt very forced and awkward. I've seen one other piece of Joel's work now and I appreciate the vulnerability and honesty in what he makes, but it still feels like it's incomplete. It feels like he said "good enough" and made do - which is totally fine, but I was surprised after halfway through we were seeing a bit that seemed to be misplaced out of Bo Burnham's Inside. It's cool to see experimentation and I'm not trying to dog him for that - let me clarify:
I think this could've been way shorter.
These are surface-level interactions and they don't need much character built if we aren't going to develop them anyways. There were plenty of fun conversations, but I felt like the editing choices made the more mundane lines seem profound by keeping them (when they really were not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things).
I think that's it - so much that really wasn't significant was shown. At the same time, I understand his style is very-much taking a slice of life and trying to draw a meta story within it.
A death in the family is hard - utmost respect for having clips of that and the pain that ensued.
