In the throes of a quarter-life crisis, Megan panics when her boyfriend proposes, then, taking an opportunity to escape for a week, hides out in the home of her new friend, 16-year-old Annika, who lives with her world-weary single dad.
Humpday’s Lynn Shelton directs a movie that seems to have been styled like an alcopop: crude, artificially flavoured and hard to swallow if sober.
Lynn 'Humpday' Shelton takes a sideways look at the challenges of growing up. Not, perhaps, her very best but still very watchable.
While it’s about as original as its bland re-titling suggests, Say When still profits from the cast’s amiable chemistry amid the A-B storytelling. Just don’t expect it to define a generation.
It’s hardly explosive or revelatory, and hinges on more contrivances than it should, but there’s a rambling, ambling charm to the film, as if Shelton is channelling early John Hughes.
It's not going to change your life, but there's an undeniable old school charm to it.
Nothing in this story is in any way amusing or plausible: it is a Frankenstein’s monster of indie-screenplay cliches, with a teeth-grating performance of intolerable gawkiness from Knightley.
The cast invest awkward situations with the ring of truth and the result is a sweet, funny and very endearing comedy.
Verdict: Keira dependent romcom.
The film hits some gratifying rom-com beats without committing to the spontaneity-sucking formula that has brought the genre into disrepute over the last 15 years.
The cast are a joy.
Director Lynn Shelton serves up a pleasant enough movie, but it could do with more emotional substance.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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