What Happens Later movie review (2023) – Roger Ebert

Meg Ryan’s glowing attraction stays firmly intact in “What Occurs Later,” her return to films for the primary time in eight years.

Ryan serves as director, co-writer, and star of the movie, which could be very deliberately a throwback to the form of feel-good rom-com that made her a celebrity. References abound to the Nineteen Nineties: the last decade that gave us such enduring megahits as “Sleepless in Seattle” and “You’ve Received Mail.” There’s an amusing operating bit inside the airport that gives the movie’s setting involving annoyingly upbeat covers of songs by the likes of Alanis Morissette and Sheryl Crow. Even the blandly forgettable title feels prefer it’s in on the joke. What does “What Occurs Later” even imply?

And the characters Ryan and David Duchovny play look like acquainted romantic comedy sorts—no less than for some time, till the movie’s quirky vitality settles down and offers these actors room to really act. “What Occurs Later” is the primary movie Ryan has appeared in since 2015 and solely her second function directing effort (her first was the historic drama “Ithaca,” through which she performed a supporting function), and this materials feels extra snug in her fingers and nearer to her coronary heart. The dedication on the finish (“For Nora”) is a poignant tribute to Nora Ephron, who wrote and directed these basic Ryan comedies.

Ryan and Duchovny star as Willa and Invoice, ex-lovers who run into one another in a regional Midwestern airport and discover themselves trapped collectively in a single day when a serious snowstorm hits. They haven’t seen one another in over 25 years, nevertheless it doesn’t take lengthy for them to begin bickering and bantering as if no time has handed. Superficially, it appears as if we’ve seen these individuals many instances earlier than. Willa is a middle-aged model of the Manic Pixie Dream Lady: a “wellness practitioner within the therapeutic arts,” as she describes herself. Together with her messy, blond waves, boho stylish apparel, and ever-present rain persist with carry out cleaning ceremonies, she nearly looks as if a parody of the lovably peculiar characters Ryan’s usually performed. Invoice, in the meantime, is buttoned-down and sardonic, a obscure company kind who’s emotionally indifferent and possessed of deadpan zingers. She’s heading to Boston, and he’s heading to Austin; they’re actually entering into reverse instructions.

How did these extraordinarily completely different individuals ever fall in love and spend years collectively on the College of Wisconsin? That’s what we discover out all through an more and more intimate and surreal evening. If “What Occurs Later” looks like a stage manufacturing on movie, that’s as a result of it basically is: Ryan tailored Steven Dietz’s play Capturing Star with Dietz and Kirk Lynn. It’s a two-hander, with an omniscient, omnipresent airport announcer offering complicated directions and, in time, cryptic tidbits of knowledge. The voice is credited to Hal Liggett, however the actor’s true id stays a thriller.