I Propose That We Never See Each Other After Tonight: Rom-com tropes and over-plotting spoil the romance

By Liam Lacey

Rating: C-plus

Even when romantic comedies don’t build emotional shelters you’d want to live in, it can be rewarding to watch the familiar construction process. 

How does our couple meet?  What’s the misunderstanding or impediment that forces them apart? Who are their wacky friends to offer them misguided advice? 

 In its premise, Sean Garrity’s I Propose That We Never See Each Other Again After Tonight, certainly displays some attention-grabbing audacity (including the decision to open during the COVID pandemic in theatres across the country).

Hera Nalam and Kristian Jordan meet cute in the snow.

The premise is this: Simon (Kristian Jordan) is a socially-awkward young Mennonite from small-town Manitoba; Iris (Hera Nalam) is an extroverted first-generation Filipina with a habit of compulsive over-sharing. They meet in possibly the most Canadian way possible, as part of a group of strangers helping push someone’s car out of a snowdrift. 

Iris suggests they go for a drink at a quiet bar. Then she proposes that they share their most intimate secrets and never see each other again. Simon agrees. (How? The city’s not that big. Why? It’s a rom-com movie premise, that’s why.)

And now to the heart of it: Is there “chemistry?” Sure. Both actors are attractive, and funny in their awkward, anxious back-and-forth dialogue. As often the case in these films, we have a shy, deep-down sweet guy and an attractive bubbly woman who would probably  be out of his league if it weren’t for her (fortunate for him) self-esteem problems.

As per genre expectations, there’s lots of peppy and sad pop music on the soundtrack. There’s the usual wacky sidekick friends, including Simon’s horny gay co-worker Gord (Matthew Paris Irvine) who is always trying to manipulate his friend into sexual situations. On the other side, Iris’s sister Agnes (Andrea Macasaet), despite her own dysfunctional relationship with a handsy creep, is full of raunchy girlfriend advice.

I Propose features a substantial Filipino cast, which may be a Canadian first, but the main takeaways here are that Filipinos, like many people, enjoy big weddings and food and prefer to be introduced to their daughter’s boyfriends before the couple moves in together. (And then break up again, because of a misunderstanding that, realistically, no one would actually misunderstand.) As for Mennonites, we get nothing, except a lot of them have the last name Friesen, which is a good surname for Manitoba in the winter.

Although the comic scenes are well-crafted, I Propose stumbles in the over-plotting. Characters mislead each other, hide and disclose information so capriciously. Consequently, the movie  begins to feel less like a love story than an alarming clinical example of dysfunctional co-enabling. What starts modest and cute grows into something lopsided and exasperating.

I Propose That We Never See Each Other After Tonight. Directed and written by Sean Garrity. Starring: Hera Nalam, Kristian Jordan, Matthew Paris Irvine and Andrea Macasaet.Playing at Cineplex Cinemas Mississauga, Cineplex Odeon Morningside, Canada Square, Vancouver, Landmark Surrey, and in Winnipeg at Cineplex International Village, Cineplex McGillivray, and  Cinema City Northgate