Dir: Alicia MacDonald, UK/US, 2026, 110 mins
Cast: Angourie Rice, Spike Fearn
Review by Carol Allen
With their latest romantic comedy Bevan and Fellner are working with a new, young team – director Alicia MacDonald and writer Rachel Hirons. So do these two young women have the Richard Curtis touch for today’s young audience? In my view, probably yes?
The setting is the very contemporary Manchester University. A hotbed of youth attitudes and views, this is a very different world from the dreaming spires of yore. This campus is home to its own tv and radio stations and very au fait with all the resources of the digital world. Musician and songwriter Owen (Spike Fearn) meets undergraduate Emily (Sadie Soverall) at a disco in the union bar, where he works. They get on really well, dance together and exchange phone numbers. He’s over the moon. He’s met his dream girl. Only the number she’s given him, much to his frustration, lacks a digit. He can’t get in touch with her.
Owen then meets another student also called Emily (Angourie Rice), who offers to help him find his dream girl. Only she has a hidden agenda. She is using him for her thesis putting forward the argument that falling love is nothing but temporary insanity and her suggestions, like emailing every girl named Emily at the uni, get him the reputation of being some sort of pervert. It’s not as dark as that makes it sound however. The treatment is light hearted and funny. This is a rom com, so we can all guess how the story’s going to end. The fun is in getting there.
The two leads are both talented and attractive. Fearn as Owen is a good looking and personable male lead and Kat Ronney makes an impact in a supporting role as political feminist who perceives him as a contemptible example of male creepiness. The real discovery though is Rice as the resourceful Emily number two. Rice is Australian born though her character is American, convincingly so, and she has something of the star quality Kirsten Dunst and Reese Witherspoon showed when they were her age.
For someone like me, who is somewhat older than Generation Z, the film is a useful window onto the very different world of today’s young adults. For Gen Z itself, who told us this week that they like going to the cinema provided the film isn’t too long, this could be their Notting Hill moment.
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