What Happened Was...

In what can only be described as a film-play, where a set space is occupied at length by the characters, What Happened Was... Creates more drama about the contemporary cultural pulse than any I have seen, let alone attempted,

The genius of the film is that its ambition is so covert. We see a casual dinner, auspiciously a date, in an early 90's Manhattan apartment. The woman is fit and decently attractive (I would do her), while her invited guest-of-honor is for all intents and purposes a slouch. Most people would judge that she is out of his league.

The idiosyncrasies of both draw themselves out, as they talk about their other co-occupied space: work. Slowly, however, as conversation boilerplate cools, their inner personalities begin peaking out of the daily masquerade. Co-workers when the night begins become confidants.

Both are aspiring writers. This is seen punctuated brilliantly to suggest to the audience that we all want to be somewhere else, doing something else. Or at least, isn't that what should be on our minds? 

The woman is most earnestly attracted to this perceived ambition by her date, and falls for his publisher sales pitch about his novel which he expects will get him fired, but will give him the privilege to turn down Letterman. 

The film quickly turns cerebral when both reach the end of their line, admitting their deepest vulnerabilities about a world which has no life in it, one which makes them feel death looming in both of their solitude.

No doubt this film will be taken as discomforting to social butterflies, as well as banal to those searching for a barrage of cinematic colors. Yet it is a powerful indictment on the consequences of not living a life according to plan.

We all can't live happily ever after. And that is a truth no one can accept.

Grade: A-