We all walk into the movie theatre—or into a film screening— with certain expectations, and we can thank (or blame) the very notion of “genre” for that. A rom-com yields certain expectations, and if it’s an indie rom-com we adjust them a bit to factor in the varying levels of obligatory quirk. But What If actually dances around those expectations, and we can thank (or blame) director Michael Dowse for that (I say, we thank him). With Zoe Kazan and Daniel Radcliffe in the lead as friends-possibly-turned-lovers Chantry and Wallace, the Canadian filmmaker (who often finds himself in good company, having recently worked with fellow Canuck Don McKellar on The Grand Seduction) is bringing back actual romance and actual comedy to the romantic comedy. Paste caught up with Dowse to talk about the making of What If, and the Canadian aesthetic.
Paste Magazine: I wanted to talk about the adaptation process a little bit, particularly concerning the animation used in the film. Was that something screenwriter Elan Mastai wrote into the script, or did that come about later?
Michael Dowse: Yes, there was always an element of animation, but it was in a very different style. So, when I came on board we started working on the script together. It didn’t need a lot of work in terms of structure or anything like that, but one of the things we looked at was animation. I had seen this clip of these guys projecting this animated tiger onto the streets of Paris, and I thought it looked really cool. I thought we could do something like that with [Chantry’s] animation and bring it into the real world—do it on a large scale, where we’re projecting onto the side of a building, and also do it on a small scale with pocket projectors, where we’re projecting onto her face, or onto the ceilings.
I thought it was an interesting way to not only get into her head, but also put her work into the film in a way that was creative and interesting.
Paste: Absolutely. When you first got a hold of the script was there one particular scene that made you feel like you had to direct this movie?
Dowse: You know what it was for me? It was the end—it was about how much I cared about whether or not these two people came together.
Paste: Sure.
Dowse: It also wasn’t one particular thing, but it was more of a great slow boil in the script that was really related to their sense of humor. And that was the thing that made me yearn for them to get together. And when they start ripping each other at the end, there’s just so much forgiveness there. Basically, their comedy becomes a symbol of their love for each other. This is a beautiful trick for a romantic comedy, where most of them are neither funny nor romantic.
Paste: Yes, I know you’ve said in the past that comedy is a huge part of a romantic or sexual relationship.
Dowse: Yes. It’s mostly sexual relationships for me (laughs). I’m kidding.