Created by Big Picture Film Club with matchmaking service Introducing Two, Film & Flirt mixes speed-friending, themed games and casual conversation with an independent rom-com screening. The first event takes place at Genesis Cinema on Tuesday 14th April, with more dates planned through the summer.

The series is aimed at singles feeling the effects of “swipe fatigue.” Research cited by the organisers says 78% of dating app users feel burned out, but keep swiping because they don’t know where else to meet people.

“Many dating apps have left people exhausted and disconnected,” said Urvisha Patel, creator of Film & Flirt and co-founder of Big Picture Film Club. “We’re creating a space where you can meet someone face-to-face, over drinks, with no algorithms involved.”

The film screening for the first event will be the British romantic comedy Due Dating, a 90-minute feature that follows Cherry, a young woman determined not to let pregnancy derail her dating life, and Cole, a blogger trying to better understand modern relationships. With the tagline “Young, free…and pregnant,” the film explores love, timing and the unpredictable ways people connect.

By pairing social matchmaking with independent cinema, Film & Flirt aims to create a space where conversation and connection come first — while also introducing audiences to new films.

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The Plot and Characters

You have to admit that the premise is fun. You can almost imagine Litwak in a writer’s room saying, “What if we did When Harry Met Sally, but in space?”. The story is set in a universe with multiple alien species and gods living together across planets and dimensions. Molli (Zosia Mamet) is an old-fashioned romantic, except she’s interested in space magic (literal space magic, not your regular horoscopes and crystals). Max (Aristotle Athari) dreams of being a “mega mech fighter” who builds and battles in giant robots, basically the future version of a sporty tech bro.

They meet when Molli crashes into Max while out driving her spaceship, and gets roped into giving him a ride. The two quickly become friends with a bond that yo-yos back and forth over the years. The leads had good chemistry, and there were convincing performances from Zosia Mamet and supporting actor Arturo Castro, who played Walter.

Political Satire

One aspect of the storyline that brought it to modern times was the impending sense of doom, especially in the second act. In 2023, we are all too familiar with the anxiety of living in a world ravaged by the climate crisis, insane politics and war, something which Molli and Max in the Future depicted in thinly veiled satire. I deeply appreciate the angle of people trying to approach love and relationships in a world that is falling apart. Most traditional rom-coms approach life with a sense of optimism that is simply impossibly unrealistic in this day and age. Strangely, the whole world-ending aspect being portrayed in this way is actually refreshing. However, it was introduced joltingly in the second act of the film. The execution of the secondary plot is not as seamless as it could have been.

The Visuals

The film’s visual aesthetic involved a lot of dark night skies lit up with neon lights and distant galaxies. Despite the sci-fi visuals, don’t walk into this film expecting shiny Marvel-esque CGI. Though there are some modern-day special effects, the film mostly relies on practical effects and heavy use of green screens. While this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, the result is the cosy vibe of 20th-century lo-fi science fiction. I especially appreciated the wardrobe which embodied that era of science fiction. It was essentially what someone in 1960 would think people in the future would dress like.

The Comedy

Perhaps the biggest success of this film was that it was actually funny. Most romantic comedies are very heavy on the romance and too light on the comedy. Molli and Max in the Future had plenty of dry jokes that qualified as real humour, and they deserve their props for that. It was nice to see a rom-com that relied on more than cheap clichés and slapstick humour.

In the Broad Sense

The storyline manages to hit all the points that rom-com fans know and love; slow-burn romance, dramatic splits after arguments, a yearning for a greater purpose. However, it doesn’t do much beyond that. Despite the effort put into world-building, special effects, futuristic wardrobes, and political satire, the storyline would hardly been any different if it happened in New York City like When Harry Met Sally did. The film’s setting and premise provided a great set-up to make it something much more, and yet it wasn’t. Though it isn’t necessarily barrier-breaking, it is a unique film and worth a watch. This is a great film if you want some cosy romance with modern sentiments and a side of old-school sci-fi.

Rating: (3 / 5)

Also Read: Rom-Coms: The Unlikely Benchmarks of Feminist Progression

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The post Love in Space: A Review of ‘Molli and Max in the Future’ [BFI London Film Festival] appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.

No movie genre more accurately shows public perception of feminism than the humble romantic comedy. I have two reasons to back up this theory. Romance stories paint a detailed picture of the roles of women and men in society – their work, marriages, money, and sex lives. The added aspect of comedy makes these portrayals more truthful than other genres. People tend to be more honest and more revealing when they’re telling a joke than when they’re speaking plainly. Combine these, and you get rom-coms.

Let’s get a little more specific with place and time. Here we shall look at three American rom-coms and break down what they tell us about feminism in America over the ages.

The Seven Year Itch (1955)

This blockbuster from the Golden Age of Hollywood follows a few days in the life of Richard Sherman, a married man in New York who struggles to resist the urge to commit adultery while his wife and son visit Maine for the summer. Although the movie didn’t have anything overtly sexual, there were sexually suggestive jokes throughout, a testament to the censorship laws of the time.

The 1950s are often painted as a time of old-fashioned Americana values, but this film shows that even the makers of those ideals weren’t happy. It was pretty much an open secret that married men became “summer bachelors” by cheating when their wives were away. The men felt trapped in their marriages, and the women were treated like little more than pretty faces.

What struck me the most is that Richard’s love interest was never given a name, even if she was a lead character. She was listed in the credits of the film as merely “The Girl”. Richard spent days talking to her but never even asked her name. He saw her more as a figment of his imagination than as a real person.

Pretty Woman (1990)

This 90s classic is a love story between Edward Lewis, a wealthy businessman, and Vivian, a Hollywood prostitute. When Edward’s girlfriend dumps him, he hires Vivian to escort him to social gatherings. The two soon fall in love and eventually, Edward rescues Vivian from poverty.

Pretty Woman is more of an escapist modern fairytale than an accurate depiction of real-life romance. Still, it tells us something about popular views of the nineties. While marriage was still the norm, it was no longer the be-all and end-all of life. Edward managed to be a respected businessman even though he avoided committed relationships until he met Vivian. And even though the 90s was an age of female empowerment and women supporting themselves, being taken care of by a rich man was still seen as a fairytale ending.

Look Both Ways (2022)

In this recent film, we follow the life of twenty-something Natalie in two alternate realities. In her senior year of college, she has one-off sex with her friend and she later takes a pregnancy test on the night of her graduation. Here, her life splits into two alternate paths, one in which she is pregnant and moves back in with her parents, and in the other the test is negative and she moves to Los Angeles to pursue a career in animation.

What I love most about this film is that she has a happy ending in both realities, but she ends up with a different man in each. Her true fulfilment came from pursuing her art, regardless of whom she was dating, where she was living or if she had a child. This reflects the current contemporary feminism, in which a man and marriage are no longer seen as the only possible life goals for a woman. Natalie did pursue love and family, but at the end of the day, her happiness lay in her work.

All in All

There are too many rom-coms for anyone to analyse in one short blog post, but I hope this gives a glimpse of how our social beliefs and politics leak into everyday media. Feminism isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and neither is the beloved genre of romantic comedy.

Also Read: Too Awkward For Love: Understanding the British Rom-Com

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The post Rom-coms: The Unlikely Benchmarks of Feminist Progression appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.