About Fate (2022) - Adapting Russian stories to reflect the world we live in today

 

After watching Hotel For the Holidays I decided I needed more Madelaine Petsch and followed it up with About Fate, a New Year's movie starring another of my favorite actresses, Emma Roberts. It allegedly had a theatrical release in September 2022 with nearly all of its limited box office coming from Russia (so much for the sanctions) but the main purpose of the production was to provide streaming content, indeed I saw it on Amazon Prime.

более подробно об этом plus one or two spoilers after the jump...

About Fate is a remake of a Russian film released in 1976 "The Irony of Fate" (Ирония судьбы). The premise is built around the idea that many Soviet era buildings are built of the same exact plan so you could be in an entirely different city, walk into an apartment on a street with the same name and not notice any difference - surprisingly subversive for that time. 

In the new version, corporate planned communities are the butt of the joke as our protagonists Margot (Roberts) and Griffin (played by James Forsyth lookalike Thomas Mann) live in identical houses in similarly named areas (Norwood vs Westwood), both hoping to be engaged by the end of the day which happens to be the day before New Year's Eve. 

Roberts apparently acquired a reputation as a high maintenance brat somewhere along the line of her now veteran career but whatever the truth of it, I think she's just great and she parlays that aura and the entitlement of being born into a powerful acting family well into comedic roles like this where she's uptight, highly strung and also a bit of a mess short on self-esteem all at the same time.

On the other side of the split screen, Griffin proposes to his girlfriend Clementine played by Madelaine Petsch in a role that feels like it was written specifically for her. Apart from the fundamentals of the character as an assertively coy and manipulative diva lining up with Petsch's early run as Cheryl Blossom on Riverdale, you can't have a character named after an orange and not have her played by a redhead.

It's mildly implausible that they are a real couple, Clementine is an influencer and as far as I can tell they usually either end up with counterpart male models or meathead financial services dudes with a white nationalist fade. Griffin is impossibly and comedically sincere throughout most of the movie and when he takes off his shirt, his body is as lacking in definition as you'd expect a nerdy public defender to be. Contrast with the guy from the Good Place who was on the same diet of supplements as the Liver King which totally undermined his character.

Come their evening date, Clementine is excited and prepared to accept his proposal but requests he save the spiel for her New Year's party for max exposure - entirely reasonable given her career as an Internet famous person. As is her plea that he not drink too much when he goes out with his friends the next day, which he totally ignores with no real remorse or consequences, something that bugged me both then and now. By coincidence, or maybe FATE, Margot is in the same restaurant getting dumped by her beau Kip (played by Azn brother Lewis Tan) where they first cross paths.

What follows in appropriately paced time, as Griffin agrees to masquerade as Kip and accompany Margot to her sister's wedding, is just a good, solid screwball comedy - I had plenty of laughs both cheap and earned and enjoyed watching. That's not to say there aren't problems. 

There are certain defined times brought up in the course of the action - the bulk of it takes place on New Year's Eve, the bridal boutique closes at a certain time, Griffin must leave at 8pm - but it definitely feels like none of those are truly held to and they do the late-stage Game of Thrones thing where journeys or events that ought to take a good long while presumably take just a few minutes so the plot can happen. These terrible logistics were a major distraction for me. 

About Fate also has a similar problem to Hotel For the Holidays where they short change you on explaining stuff. Margot and Griffin share an appreciation for the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's. In the movie, Audrey Hepburn sings "Moon River" in one of the most iconic scenes ever laid on film - if you've seen it. If you haven't and you only watched About Fate, you would have no idea why the main characters are suddenly excited to dance to Moon River together. 

Speaking of fate, main character Georgia in "Hotel For the Holidays" hates magic and supposedly everyone keeps telling her there's magic in dem der walls and it's the same story for Margot here except instead of magic, it's fate and she claims everyone keeps harassing her over this but I'm not sure they really do and it doesn't land for me. 

I would say though that in the end I left the film feeling warm and reasonably satisfied - it is decent fun and I think worth a watch. I'm just not sure yet about any rewatching.

Other notes: Apparently Russians were not psyched to see this remake happen, probably with justification what with all of Hollywood's fumbles of reboots and adaptations in the last few years. They do nod to their roots though, first of all replicating the key plot point of a drunken excursion to a Russian bathhouse, then later on when Griffin steps out in a full Adidas tracksuit. I shit you not... Griffin boasts that Clementine has 10k Instagram followers which doesn't sound like that many. Morganisawizard, so known because she is not a professional model as Clementine is meant to be and thus her last name is not public has around 25k. Monica Klinarová, an ITF scrub from Czechia who doesn't really do endorsements on her page has 45k. If Clementine were a big enough deal to be livecasting her New Year's party, she ought to at least have them both beat... When Kip and Griffin inevitably throw down I appreciate that it's a curb stomp battle and Kip is just toying with him for most of it...

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