new romantic
Carly Stone’s directorial debut is a sweet, disturbing and funny take on the complexity of modern sexual politics. The New Romantic is ultimately a breezy and enjoyable romantic comedy (like the favourite Nora Ephron films of its protagonist) but the film is in no way slight or simplistic. In fact, it is a balanced and nuanced take on a topic fraught with ambiguity.
Blake is a Canadian university student. She writes an anonymous column about her love life (or what passes for it) for her campus newspaper (which unrealistically seems to have only four contributors, maybe my only complaint about the film). But even publicly baring all of the petty embarrassments and non-romance of the Tinder age is not engaging readers, her editor claims. She’s being cancelled.
At first even her immersive, gonzo journalistic ambitions are not enough to tempt her to investigate when she stumbles upon a titillating new angle on the old age story of sex and money. When they accidentally swap IDs, Blake meets Morgan, a more worldly girl who is a proud sugar baby, a woman who parlays her youth and beauty into arrangements with wealthy men who want a no-strings-attached girlfriend. In exchange women like her get expensive gifts, exotic vacations and fancy meals. Why not receive something from suave older men instead of nothing from gauche young geeks? Morgan offers to hook Blake up with an interested man. She demurs, but thinks it might be a good story. She takes the plunge, and hangs out with Morgan and two sugar daddies at an expensive lake house. After writing about it, she gets her column back and has to decide how much she is willing to throw herself into this story.
Even though she writes about her love life, Blake is awkward and normal and not conventionally sexy. She rides a bike and takes dumb selfies with her best friend and generally doesn’t try too hard to impress people. As Blake, British actress Jessica Barden (with a flawless Canadian accent!), is so natural and convincing, an average, pretty, smart and fresh faced soon-to-be college grad. She anchors the film strongly.
A light comedic touch while making a film about money, power and sex is no small achievement. It is easy to be judgmental when it comes to any aspect of selling or trading sex. It is also easy to applaud everything women do with their bodies as a triumph of self-determination and empowerment. But few things are that black and white. At first Blake feels fine with her decision to become a sugar baby. She does enjoy being wined and dined and spending time with a sophisticated person. She interprets his flowers and gifts as what passes for romance these days. But as the story unfolds, she discovers what most women do - that if the man has all the money he also retains all the power.
Blake also discovers that despite his lake house and the numerous books he had written, her sugar daddy professor is no better than any of the pathetic, clueless young guys she has tried to date. None of them have genuine interest in who she is, and that is not romance.
As this is a comedy, there is a convenient young man who turns out to be lovely. Too neat and tidy? Maybe. But also sweet and satisfying and a relief to offer hope that romance is still a possibility.
The New Romantic won the Special Jury Prize at SXSW 2018 and plays Thursday, October 4, 2018 at 9:00 PM Rio Theatre and Saturday, October 6, 2018 at 4:00 PM SFU Goldcorp. Watch the trailer.