Look for the Connections.
This is intended to be a no spoiler review.
What Happens Later is a movie starring David Duchovny and Meg Ryan - co-written and directed by Meg Ryan. They each play a W. Davis (Bill and Willa) who, while in college in the 90s, were in a serious relationship. They meet again, all these years later, while stranded in a small airport by the "storm of the century".
"Are you on a trip or on a journey?" is a question posed to Bill by Willa when they run into each other at the airport. The difference, as she defines it, is that a trip is a destination and a journey is a goal.
it is a visually beautiful movie with metaphors that apply to us all. There is a storm raging outside - the most violent epic of storms. It is scary to look at and you know it’s bad, but it's OUT THERE and you are indoors, and it seems like it can't touch or reach you for now, but it may signify that the world as we know it is changing in ways we can't control. This is not a simple plot device to strand two people in an airport - a simple snowstorm would have sufficed. This is the scary reality of the world we all inhabit right now. We see Bill doing a bit of doom scrolling, but Willa's phone is dead and none of the power outlets are working, She is a woman without power who feels as stuck in her life as she is at the airport.
Circumstances are forcing the two characters to STOP. They are still for the moment, present at the airport in a way most of us never are, suspended in time between the past and the future. This creates the urgency - the buy in from the viewer- which keeps us interested despite the lack of big action events. The characters have no control even over the music they are forced to listen to and they keep seeming to try and walk away from the other person, but the other person keeps coming with them, in the same way they have carried the other person with them forever through-out their life. The real journey comes not on a trip but while looking retrospectively at the past - what you perceived wrong and what you never told the one you loved- and what you hope for the future. Are you on a trip or a journey take on a different meaning when you consider that you might be traveling through life without direction.
When the film was released there was criticism It is a dialogue-laden movie with the only action being the storm outside and the only danger being an intensely unpleasant evening reliving a past mistake. The characters are two aging individuals with small world problem and, outside of the airport announcer ( rumored to be voiced by Eddie Vedder and an intricate part of the film), there are no other characters in the movie. I cannot deny any of this criticism as fact because it is exactly true It’s not a big action film. It is dialogue laden. It is a story with older actors. From my perspective, that is all part of the appeal.
This movie stars two iconic actors playing characters with a past. They are exes and the tension is that as exes there is resentment of how they split despite the immediate familiar intimacy as a couple who have lived together. The genre is a romantic comedy with more maturity and heart than is typical
The acting is brilliant. The two play off of one another in a way that immediately forces the viewer into their intimacy and distance. Meg Ryan is as adorable as ever and no actor on earth plays nuanced conflicting emotions better than David Duchovny. Forced together in a present odd world, they are forced to consider their shared past and how it connects with who they are today. The dialogue moves through small talk to their reflections on the past and the truths they never told each other
We are all on a journey Open your heat to laughter, romance, magic and look for the connections