'Look Both Ways' can't even deliver one way right
Netflix
It’s not just that Lili Reinhart can make anything watchable. It’s that she can shade sweetness with something darker so you believe it if her character’s appeal contains insidious layers. On “Riverdale,” the trajectory of Betty Cooper doesn’t feel like some forced, Peter-Parker-goes-emo-in-“Spiderman 3” nonsense. She’s appealing, she’s haunted. Reinhart is a delight, and she’s dangerous.
In “Look Both Ways,” though, the actress (“Hustlers,” “Chemical Hearts”) is given mush and asked to cook something with it, like “Chopped” for prisoners of bad scripts. She does everything she can. But the film is further evidence that Netflix seems to have a couple templates (underwhelming YA-style romance, underwhelming action about assassins) that it assigns to a new group and pretends that changing one element and a title qualifies as a new movie. But, like, what if, this movie wants to ask. What if we saw two possible paths for Natalie (Reinhart) based on if her collegiate pregnancy test is positive or negative? What if “Sliding Doors” never existed? What if 15 years after “Knocked Up” an accidental pregnancy still didn’t involve a consideration of abortion? (Natalie’s from Texas! The issue of options, or lack thereof, needs to be addressed!) What if we take the parallel developments of NBC’s unfortunately canceled “Average Joe” and edit them into incomprehensibility, preventing emotional development and clarity and guaranteeing that you don’t feel the least bit involved in either potential present or future?
What if we stop asking what if and say more directly how much this movie—more accurately titled “Look: Both Ways Stink” fails no matter which path it takes?
Take your pick: The version in which Natalie has a child with her pal Gabe (Danny Ramirez, dull) and invests in raising her daughter instead of pursuing her dream in animation, or the version in which she moves to L.A. and lands a prime job and love interest (David Corenswet, also bland!) in the same far-fetched way as the likewise lousy “Can You Keep a Secret?” It’s not just that these setups are already starved for ideas; their execution escalates at the pace of waiting for the kid sitting in the T-ball outfield to start for the Yankees. Writer April Prosser and snoozing director Wanuri Kahiu aren’t exploring anything about choices or mistakes or parental roles or personal/professional compromises or opportunities in creative fields or sacrifices or non-traditional families or anything of value. Both plotlines refuse conflict and flaws, settling for a puppy’s version of adult challenges and responsibilities. “Look Both Ways” would feel like “Shrug: The Movie” if its avoidances weren’t so transparent and borderline offensive.
A daring take on this approach might allow Natalie to be aware of both possible fates and have to choose one, then dealing with the absence of what she saw unfold in the other. Hahahahahahaha that isn’t this movie, which includes a painful cover of the already horrible Fun song “We Are Young” and appears totally oblivious to how perfectly that track represents this hollow exercise in vapid uplift. Toniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight, stream anything else.
D+
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