Wish You Were Here Film Review: Love & Closure

Julia Stiles’ directorial debut Wish You Were Here is a suitably romantic drama with strong performances and a melancholic tone.

The film postulates all these questions through a suitably romantic story that, while feeling a tad forced from time to time, still manages to tug at the heartstrings, making the viewer feel for its protagonists and the peculiar situation they get involved in.

Isabelle Fuhrman (of The Orphan and its sequel, although this time she’s playing an adult) is Charlotte, a twenty-something waitress who seems to be waiting for something other than tables: for the right man, the right job, even the right place to live. One night after leaving work with her best friend (Gabby Kono-Abdy), she has a meet-cute with artist Adam (Mena Massoud, of the Aladdin live-action remake) and immediately falls for him. So much so, in fact, that she spends the night at his place, making up stories about their potential future, and exchanging romantic phrases.

After leaving the next morning, though, she gets ghosted by Adam, which makes her feel like the time they spent together wasn’t as special as she thought. So after finding out that her brother Chucky (Jordan Gavaris) created a profile for her on a dating app, she decides to go on a date with a kind enough guy (Jimmie Fails) who messaged her on said app. The problem is that she can’t stop thinking about Adam, so she decides not to keep seeing the guy. And that’s just as well, because she almost immediately finds out that Adam didn’t ghost her on purpose and is actually terminally ill, with a brain tumour that affects his memory. That’s when she decides to quit her job and, for once, do something with her life: take care of Adam and make sure he lives his last days on Earth to the fullest.

If the plot summary sounds a little convoluted, that’s because the film itself feels the same way. It might be due to Renée Carlino’s book of the same name on which it’s based, or how it was adapted for the big screen, but Wish You Were Here does take its time to really start, keeping its two protagonists separate for a good chunk of the story. In fact, they only reunite at about the fifty-minute mark, which means the movie relies on their only night together feeling like a true once-in-a-lifetime, magical event. Most of the romance occurs once Adam is hospitalised and Charlotte has to take care of him, remembering the amazing time they had together that one night.

Thus, Wish You Were Here ends up having quite the atypical structure for a movie of this sort, granting a good deal of its runtime to an additional (potential) romance that has a small payoff at the end, and trying to make the viewer think Adam actually ghosted Charlotte. It’s an interesting decision that nevertheless doesn’t fully work, making some of the grand declarations of love between Charlotte and Adam feel unearned and exaggerated. I know Wish You Were Here is supposed to be a fantasy about love and regret, but allowing its protagonists to share a couple of more scenes before they are separated would’ve allowed their romance to flourish in a more believable fashion.

Thankfully, there’s enough chemistry between Fuhrman and Massoud to compensate for the script’s more eccentric decisions. Most of the time, they do feel like a real couple, even if he’s living on borrowed time and she’s trying to make the most out of a terrible situation. Fuhrman plays Charlotte as a kind and down-to-earth woman who nevertheless feels lost. She has the support of his parents (played by Jennifer Grey and Kelsey Grammer) and her best friend, but is in need of an extra push. Adam’s appearance in her life, albeit brief, might represent said push; a motivation for her to do something good and special for someone else.

For his part, charismatic Mena Massoud (whose career should’ve exploded after Aladdin, but alas, we don’t live in a fair world) initially plays Adam like a mysterious figure. He intentionally keeps many secrets from Charlotte at the beginning of the story, but once he reunites with her, he gradually becomes more and more human. Not only because of his condition, but due to the way he relates to Charlotte and is helped by her, and also because of the way he reacts to his imminent death. It’s a tricky role, and Massoud makes the most out of it, playing Adam not only as a victim of horrible circumstances but also as a deeply human, romantic and flawed man.

Wish You Were Here feels like the kind of film that doesn’t get released in cinemas all that often nowadays. And thankfully, it also feels like something better than the average Netflix or Hallmark romantic comedy or drama. Yes, the dialogue is frequently cheesy and the way the central romance is structured doesn’t fully work, but Stiles’ direction is assured, the performances are believable and charming, and the story is presented in such a way that it ends up being emotional without feeling too manipulative. Wish You Were Here is a solid directorial debut for Stiles, who I hope will continue making more and better features in the near future.

Wish You Were Here will be released in US theatres on January 17, 2024.