LOVE STUCK // A FILM REVIEW OF "I'M NOT IN LOVE"

BY MATEO MORENO

I'M NOT IN LOVE is a sort of anti-romantic comedy. Co-written and directed by Col Spector, this is the final film in a trilogy of men and their relationship with women. What's clear from the first moment up until the last frame is that Spector has no interest in telling the same kind of romantic story. He wants to tell a more "realistic story," one that cuts through the bullshit and "tells it like it is." So you could say that is what this British indie is. Or you could say that it's a stunningly uncertain film that has multiple unlikable male characters, most being its male lead Rob (Al Weaver). Whether or not you like this film will truly rest on if you can stomach nearly 90-minutes of a sexist man-child who is shocked that his life have turned out so shitty all while treating the women around him like shit.

Rob is an emotionally void childish adult, currently living with his girlfriend Marta (Cristina Catalina) for the past three years. He has a group of other emotionally stunted male friends, all of which also look at their romantic partners as "the best they could do." Sometimes they even say it to their faces, which is just such an admirable trait. Marta is anxious to get married, watching all of her friends do it around her. Yet she's scared that Rob just won't propose. So after going out on a couple secret dates without his girlfriend knowing, he decides he can't do better than what he sees as an average girl and decides to get a ring and propose. I'm not sure what's more frustrating: the nonsense of how much Rob is a sexist cad who has little to no redeeming qualities or the fact that Marta most definitely wouldn't still be in a relationship with this bozo.

Marta's character is definitely written as a good person, but she's also not well defined. She's the kind of character in a rom com who's doing what a woman is supposed to do at this age: Get married and have a baby. Yet there's not real depth we get to see in her character on why she wants this other than the fact that she just does. Rob's circle of friends are all supposed to be comic relief but are only annoying distractions to an already annoying main plotline.  Sadly, there's little to like in I'M NOT IN LOVE and it's certainly not a love letter to anything but a bygone era of sexist cliches that I truly had hoped we had moved past in films like this. Sadly, as it is in full display here, we haven't.

GRADE: D-

WRITTEN BY Radha Chakraborty, Col Spector DIRECTED BY Col Spector STARRING Al Weaver, Cristina Catalina, Morgan Watkins, Sinead Matthews, Tessa Peake-Jones. NOW PLAYING ON DIGITAL PLATFORMS