What Happens Later

Grade: D

Give David Duchovny and Meg Ryan a general plot outline, roll the cameras immediately, let them riff and improv for 105 minutes, and you’d have What Happens Later. That’s what appears to be the case. But no, this is actually based on a play by Steven Dietz called Shooting Star. Most transplants from the theatre to the theater, if you will, emerge successfully. With What Happens Later, the operation is a failure and the patient dies.

It’s essentially a two-person film with an omniscient voice heard over the intercom and extras who disappear and come back when it’s convenient for the story. They are also eternally unfazed by Ryan and Duchovny’s antics and loud arguing. They were romantically involved 25 years ago, and have run into each other for the first time since about then, at the regional airport. They play Willa Davis and Bill Davis. They share a first initial and last name, and the unceasing amount of times they call each other “W. Davis” will make you weary.

After various forms of talking, which is at least 50% comprised of interruptions and overlapping, the announcement comes over the PA that all flights are grounded until further notice, due to the vicious snowstorm. This gives our stars the opportunity to yak up a storm of their own, overnight. You could call it “When W. Davis met W. Davis again, sleepless at the gate.” Literally everyone else, from the flyers to the personnel, is gone after a while, commodiously leaving Ryan and Duchovny with free reign over the entire airport. They are somehow able to get a bite to eat at a cafe, but otherwise can swipe liquor bottles from the bar, smoke pot, use the moving sidewalk as a treadmill, and drive around in one of those little cars.

This isn’t a supernatural story, but there are surreal moments of weird magic. They go over like a fart in a spacesuit. The screens throughout the airport are able to show…I don’t even know what. Is it supposed to be video footage of the two of them from back in the day? You don’t have to answer that – I don’t care that much. The man making announcements over the loudspeaker apparently knows everything and can hear them. This could have been mined for some great comedy gold, but the best they’re able to come up with in their dialogue is: Airport Voice says something like “all flights are suspended,” Ryan and Duchovny say “Really?,” and Airport Voice replies with “Yes.” This happens a few more times. I mouthed “yes” along with him eventually. It’s not any funnier on the second, third, or fourth occurrence.

Ryan is wearing many hats here, as she’s also the director, an executive producer, and helped adapt the play script. She dedicates the movie to the late writer/director Nora Ephrom, who made some romcoms that were so endearing that you forgave or barely noticed the cookie cutter. Ryan also seems to be trying to do the Richard Linklater thing. He directed Boyhood and the Ethan Hawke/Julie Delpy “Before” movies – and is known for getting natural, conversational performances out of his actors. The dialogue in What Happens Later is annoying and off-putting. I can only assume the play this is based on is reasonably powerful. What we see on the silver screen, however, is a ridiculous, contrived, melodramatic, cloying, clunky mess.

Grade: D