LITERALLY, RIGHT BEFORE AARON
US, 2016, 104 minutes, Colour.
Justin Long, Cobie Smulders, John Cho, Leah Thompson, Dana Delaney, Kristin Schaal, Peter Gallagher, Ryan Hansen, Luis Guzman.
Directed by Ryan Eggold.
Actor Ryan Eggold had made a short film, Literally, Right Before Aaron, in 2011. Five years later he made a feature length film with the same title. It had some international release as The Wedding Guest.
It is the story of a forlorn young man, played wistfully (and oftentimes irritatingly) by Justin Long. The film opens with his receiving a phone call from his girlfriend of eight years, Allison (Cobie Smulders) who is about to marry Aaron (Ryan Hansen).
Adam is disturbed, paces, gets advice via Skype from his friend (John Cho), is in contact with family members, decides to go to the wedding and travels to San Francisco. The most part of the film has Adam interacting with a range of people that he meets, sometimes offloading his sorrows on them, often concealing the truth. He also has many flashbacks of the eight years that he spent with Allison, his introducing himself to her in a library, her initial resistance, his spoiling her reading of Of Mice and Men, revealing the ending… It is never clear to him why they broke up.
There are some comic pieces, the encounter with the receptionist at the hotel and his insinuations, meeting an old friend whom he forgets the name of in the library, people around the city. He also goes to the rehearsal, encounters Aaron, plays tennis with him, seems to be resigned, but… His also set up with an awkward woman to be his companion at the ceremony.
Needless to say, at the moment consent, he has a wild fantasy, going up to Allison, embracing her in a swashbuckling manner and taking off – only to wake up again.
He is uptight during the reception, awkward with his companion, going outside and encountering one of the cooks who listens to him, tells him the story of his dead goldfish but his immediately going out and buying a new one, sharing some drugs.
Aaron has done some courses with a French chef and they have made an extraordinary wedding cake – Adam, the worse for drink and drugs, intrudes into the reception, sends the cake hurtling, is pursued by Aaron, out into the streets from City Hall, chased by Aaron and Alison.
The key scene occurs in the toilet where he encounters Allison, misunderstands her response, she listening sympathetically, but trying to persuade him to be a friend.
There are some funny moments in the film, but because the central character is such a forlorn sad sack, behaving irritatingly so much of the time, some audiences will have a hard time with the film.
