I have already heard about this film and its concept, however, watching it was an EXPERIENCE.
Story: Okey it was easy and simple but it works. This days, im enjoying how films and tv series are focusing on a more limitated time concept or in more simple concepts instead of developing more messy plots. Here is simple, a boy likes a girl and makes a wish so that girl loves him back. as i said again it is not new but it is well developed.
Bear is an asshole but,most importantly, he is a COWARD. He doesn't have the courage to confess to Nikki even though she makes a opening to him and be serious. But he doesn't take the opportunity, he doesn't face reality, instead he choose fantasy, he choose a wish.
Like everyone has said before, the film is basiclly a proof of how far is the "Nice Guy" is willing to go in order to satisfy his desires.
Bear is alone, that is the reality. His grandma is dead and his cat is the same. He know the love of a motherly figure that cooks for you and takes care of him; and the love of a pet who waits for him in the front door and gives him gift he doesn't understand. This man doesn't know love as a real thing outside of that and the fantasy he created around "romantic love". The real Nikki actually bring this up in that conversation about her story:
-im writing a love story.
The concept of love as mandatory romantic also influence his wish. He is someone who has aisolated himself and just know the love of a grandma and a cat and how convenient that Nikki becomes exactly that. Someone who cooks, someone who waits at home, someone who brings dead gifts.
One of the scenes that disgusted me the most and where you start to see how Bear really is, or at least is more obvious, is at the end of the restaurant scene. In there Bear ask her why did she lie about her father and well the melt down happend but the important part is when she ask him back â do you really care about that?â and his answer being a simple and upfront NO with a cut to Bear having sex with her. And that's the whole fucking point. Bear doesn't care that she lie about her father, he doesn't care about her career or about her family, he only wants to fuck the pretty girl.
This also brings me back to another scene. After the melt down at the party where she hits herself with the bottle they have a conversation where Bear tells her that âeverything goes being normal, you were prettyâ, like you were pretty there sitting and being my girlfriend and that was it. The poem asking for help doesnt matter, the awkward laugh doesnt matter; you were pretty and thats all.
Cinematografy/Direction: this is just some simple notes i notice about composition while i was watching and i dont want to forget about them.
Before making the wish, when the camera is focus on Nikki is always when she smiles or is being in the same wavelength of Bear. However, during the conversation at the car when she gets offended by being called freaky Nikki we only she her body, the frame of the carâs window cuting off her head. No face, just a body. We heard her anger voice but not the expression. It feels like Bear doesn't want to face Nikki when she doesn't follow his ideals so he reduce her to a body and we only saw her face when she was something he liked.
After the wish, she becomes a shadow of herself, as many people have commented. An identity without a face, just a silhouette of a woman not a defining image of Nikki just the silhouette of her body.
