REVIEW
The New Romantic
Stars: 3.5
Starring Jessica Barden, Hayley Law, Brett Dier, Avan Jogia, Timm Sharp, Darren Eisnor, Vinnie Bennett, Annie Clark and Camila Mendes
Written and directed by Carly Stone
Rated: 14A for coarse language, smoking and drug use, nudity and sexual situations
Runtime: 82 minutes
Now playing at Cineplex Odeon South Edmonton
The New Romantic has a great premise to start conversations: is romance dead? Is sex a social interaction that is basically just a transaction? Is everything justifiable when everybody gets what they want? Our young protagonist figures out her own answers to those questions not just by writing about it but by living it.
College student Blake Conway (Jessica Barden) starts off a bit out of place. She writes a sex column for her school’s newspaper, but it’s boring because … well, so is her love life. Hunter S. Thompson she is not, though she idolizes the gonzo journalist famous for writing himself into his Rolling Stone articles.
She comes across as a bit of a wide-eyed and innocent optimist, a hopeless romantic, one who talks about sappy Nora Ephron movies a bit too much. Maybe that means that her idea of dating is a bit dated. Maybe she puts love on a pedestal with unrealistic expectations. The guys she has been seeing don’t exactly inspire the grandeur of romance either. That’s what it’s like in the age of Tinder apparently. Swipe left or swipe right. Who has time to fall in love and build a lasting relationship?
As fate would have it, one of her classmates has an alternative that she never considered before: being a ‘sugar baby’ to a ‘sugar daddy’. It seems glamorous at the time. A rich guy offers lavish gifts to a young woman in exchange for physical intimacy. There is still a surprising amount of substance to the relationship, too, with dates and long talks. It’s not as straightforward as prostitution but there is an unexpected formality to it. There are still rules that can’t be broken.
Blake starts up such a relationship with a lonely economics professor named Ian (Timm Sharp). He seems like a decent enough guy and certainly has no shortage of wealth to offer. The arrangement is fun. They have a connection. What’s more: it gives her some great fodder for her column. He doesn’t play games, she says. He calls when he says he will and makes concrete plans in advance.
“It’s chivalry at its finest,” she says. “Perhaps romance isn’t dead, just hiding out in another dimension.”
What’s even better is how she considers the possibility of parlaying it all into a journalism prize with a payout big enough to cancel her student debts.
If ever there was a mutually beneficial relationship, it’s this one, at least on paper. In practicality, however, attraction can overtake reason and everything can easily become a disaster.
The New Romantic is Canadian Carly Stone’s directorial debut and it demonstrates a wealth of proficient filmmaking talent. I really felt for Blake and her predicament. As Blake, Jessica Barden shows a capacity for embodying a character that is a bit rare. She plays her part with an angelic face while acting in ways that honestly would leave some people blushing or simply feeling like she had taken leave of her senses. This film was a beauty to watch and had some really smart dialogue and situations, enough to sustain a dinner party’s worth of conversation. I can’t wait to see what Stone throws at us next.
