Which Brings Me to You Is a Frustrating Waste of an Interesting Rom-Com Premise

Rom-com directors, I beg of you: Let go of your obsession with using the sacred needledrop of “It Had to Be You.” Director Rob Reiner found its perfect placement in When Harry Met Sally, essentially rendering the song out of play in subsequent rom-coms, because who can best that very high bar? And if you do half-ass the use of the song, you will be judged for it. I’m looking at you, Which Brings Me to You director Peter Hutchings.

An adaptation of the 2006 novel of the same name by Julianna Baggott and Steve Almond, Which Brings Me to You stars Lucy Hale as Jane and Nat Wolff as Will, two apathetic guests invited to a New Jersey seaside wedding. The only thing that interests them is one another. So, even before the hors d’oeuvres have made the rounds, Jane propositions Will to a quickie in the coat room. He enthusiastically accepts, then promptly pours cold water on the vibe by suggesting they talk instead. Despite that humiliating rejection, he somehow manages to get Jane to continue speaking with him, sober up and then reluctantly share with him her worst heartbreaks. And thus, the cobwebs of their failed romances are dusted off to become the anecdotal spine of this “unconventional” meet-cute rom-com.

Screenwriter Keith Bunin (Onward) and director Hutchings erase the epistolary format of the book—which had the authors, as the characters, sharing their past love lives in letters over a span of time—and instead compress their couple’s tales of woe into a 24-hour period. In theory, that seems like a smart call to accelerate their chemistry, but that only works if there’s some heat between the leads. While Hale and Wolff  have separately done strong work in prior romance films, including Hale and Hutchings’ prior winner, The Hating Game, they can’t spark any sizzle here.

That said, Hale is still the MVP for knowing what works in this genre and striving for it throughout. It’s Wolff who seems a bit adrift, not hitting the needed breezy charm that would make us understand what Jane sees in him, and then fall for them being together. Will is too dire throughout, so much so that even his slutty “artist in New York” phase doesn’t come across as carefree or much fun. He may be the instigator with this experiment in soul-sharing, but the script shortchanges him with opportunities to really like him.

The pace of Which Brings Me to You is also all wrong. Instead of allowing Jane and Will’s fledgling feelings to breathe, the speedy script unfolds like it’s a CliffsNotes version of the book. After they each confess their first broken romances, a steady stream follows until the bitter end. Only character actor John Gallagher Jr., who plays Jane’s most important ex, does the most with the little screen time he’s given with Hale. Otherwise, none of their individual stories make much emotional impact on us, or the film. Which is weird, because more time is given to their flashback heartbreaks than any consequential scenes about their present potential. 

It doesn’t help that the capsule reviews of their breakups are also hurried and artless. Hutchings relies on perfunctory natural light and less-than-flattering camera angles to frame everything, which means every single story looks and feels the same. For a film about romance set near a beach, there’s a dearth of dappled lighting or rich cinematography to set a mood for these two. And it only gets worse when Hutchings tries to shoehorn in a few extremely unappealing sex scenes that curled my toes in the very worst way. It seems like someone must be aware that he’s lacking in this department, because the explicitly horny bits in the first third of the movie trickle away until Which Brings Me to You becomes almost chaste, like Hutchings got the note to please stop.

Circling back to the music, Hutchings crams Which Brings Me to You with bland, low-budget indie needledrops. Some of which are those tragic reworkings of classic standards like “It Had to Be You,” which he uses poorly. Twice. There’s even a strange mini-musical interlude that seems to exist only because Hale and Wolff are both singers. It’s cringe-inducing, awkward and out of place in a film that is already guilty of both song hubris and a lack of imagination with its music choices. 

All of this culminates with one of my most hated rom-com pet peeves: An unearned ending that has Jane giving some of Will’s really terrible behavior a big old free pass. Instead of melting into these two, my brain was just screaming, “Run, girl!” That’s pretty much the antithesis of what you want from your audience at the end of your rom-com.

Director: Peter Hutchings
Writers: Keith Bunin
Starring: Lucy Hale, Nat Wolff, John Gallagher Jr.
Release Date: January 19, 2024

Tara Bennett is a Los Angeles-based writer covering film, television and pop culture for publications such as SFX Magazine, NBC Insider, SYFY Wire and more. She’s also written official books on Sons of Anarchy, Outlander, Fringe, The Story of Marvel Studios and Avatar: The Way of Water. You can follow her on Twitter @TaraDBennett or Instagram @TaraDBen.