Meg Ryan directs returns to rom-com roots with David Duchovny in ‘What Happens Later’
Written by ABC AUDIO ALL RIGHTS RESERVED on August 30, 2023
On Wednesday, August 30, Bleecker Street Films released the trailer to What Happens Later, a later-in-life romantic comedy starring, co-written and directed by Meg Ryan.
When an airport delay forces a chance reunion of her character, Willa, with her ex, David Duchovny‘s Bill, the pair end up reminiscing about their lives before they broke up and in the decades since.
The return to the genre has some winks from Ryan: At one point, Bill charges his phone by casually unplugging a video poster for a movie called Rom-Com.
According to the studio, “Indefinitely delayed, Willa, a magical thinker, and Bill, a catastrophic one, find themselves just as attracted to and annoyed by one another as they did decades earlier.”
The description continues, “But as they unpack the riddle of their mutual past and compare their lives to the dreams they once shared, they begin to wonder if their reunion is mere coincidence, or something more enchanted.”
“You left, you let go,” Ryan reminisces. “When people break up, there’s the thing that they tell each other, and then there’s the truth.”
Bill counters, “I was in love with you, and I couldn’t turn that off like a switch.”
“I know,” she replies.
Passing the time while they’re stranded, the pair are seen capering around the empty airport.
She later asks him, “Have you ever wondered ‘What If?'”
“I had a good life, but I never again met anyone who made me feel the way you do,” he says.
They’re later seen lying next to each other on the floor. “‘Are you happy?’ Isn’t that the one question we should be asking each other?'”
What Happens Later will get its theatrical debut on October 13.
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