“The Stranger Dangers of Dating”
Meagan Good plays Gabrielle, a graphic designer and serial dater, who has to balance her dating adventures with her career ambitions at an upscale magazine when she goes on assignment to see of she can find love by the 10th date with the same man.
I don’t date. I spend time with potential partners I already know, but I don’t “go on dates”. I feel that dating is like going on a job interview — except somebody has to pay for it and there’s no chance of health insurance. And the questions! The same tired old questions about your hopes and dreams and favorite activities to do on a sunny day make my blood run cold. It’s the opposite of romantic. I prefer meeting someone during the normal execution of my daily life. I find Cupid works better on his own schedule, not mine. There’s nothing like walking on to a soundstage — minding your own business — and randomly locking eyes with the cinematographer. He gives you a cheeky grin and you quickly look away, pretending you didn’t see him, as you secretly delight in that warm spark of sensation in your chest. It just feels less contrived than scheduling to have dinner with a complete stranger from an app, a bar or god-knows-where people are meeting these days. The last time I went on a date with a stranger, I ended up jumping out of a moving cab so she couldn’t see where I lived! As a high-functioning autistic dude, I thought dating would make me feel more “human” but it doesn’t. I talk about about how weird it is for me in The Late Flight Show vlog episode Dating: Stranger Danger. Dating complete strangers is just too unpredictable; and unpredictable situations are often prime breeding ground for high-jinx shenanigans. Welcome to the world of Love by the 10th Date.
Meagan Good leads a team of lovable and relatable actors as she executive produces and stars in this fresh romantic comedy. Keri Hilson was probably the most surprisingly great casting choice of this film. She carried her morally divisive character with a sensitivity and savvy that far exceeded my expectations. It could have been so easy for her to play the role generically — in a similar way that some actors think that playing a “bad girl” means wearing a leather jacket — but she didn’t. Even though she wasn’t on screen for much time, her energy (whenever she was on-screen) was so grounded I kept thinking how I’d totally “take a flight” with her! Another surprise performance came from Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman. I first saw him in UnReal where he played the the easy-to-hate producer Jay. You know how sometimes some actors are just so good at certain roles that you actually think they’re not acting? He’s one of those. While I despised his character in UnReal, I fell head-over-heels in love with him in Love by the 10th Date.
The film opens with Meagan Good’s Gabrielle burning her weave as she gets ready for work. She can’t afford to fix her car, let alone luxuries like going to the hair salon. She’s a broke millennial artist barely making ends meet as a graphic designer for an upscale magazine run by Maureen (Cat Deely). Her love life is down in the dumps and she’s weary of the LA dating scene. Her colleague and friend Nell (Kellee Stewart) encourages her to pitch a story for the magazine to make some extra cash. The story? Can she find love by the 10th date with the same man? With the promise of a $5000 check for the story — and possibly a new boyfriend — Gabrielle dives headfirst into the challenge. Good’s portrayal of Gabrielle is so innocent and adorable that you can’t help but chuckle at all the little misfortunes that befall her on her dating journey to love. In particular, there’s a hilarious scene in a church with Flex Alexander’s Preacher Hill!
While we follow Gabrielle on her mission, her friends have their own scenes of worthwhile storylines that are just as entertaining as the A-story. That’s where this film was different from most other Rom-Coms I’ve seen in the past. The entire casting of this film was perfect. If I wasn’t laughing out loud at Good’s Gabrielle, I was screaming blue-murder at Brandon T. Jackson’s Dante from behind a cloud of late flight smoke. Another thing that surprised me about the film, was how progressive the script was, with regards to the types of relationships they explored through each character. Even in the hetero-normative relationships, the story picked-up on themes that I’d never really seen explored in mainstream Romantic Comedy films before.
When it comes to dating, the idea of finding love in 10 dates is about as useful as a Cosmo article on attending sex parties on Zoom. I think dating in such a calculated way is a sign of having control issues. When people write lists and draw up schematics of their “perfect guy or girl” it shows a lack of confidence in themselves and their decision-making abilities. I don’t know if it’s my autism logic, but…while I think it’s good to know what you like; how do you know what you might also like, if you’ve already decided on what you already like? I used to think I didn’t like olives until I had them on a pizza, and now I love them. Kelly Rowland’s character Margot says one of the best lines when she explains that nobody knows how this “love thing” really works. While consoling Gabrielle, she says that “sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn’t”. I’ve never heard that in a romantic comedy before, and it was refreshing to have that in there. Usually, the lead character is always being encouraged to “never give up on love” but here, Margot tells Gabrielle to relax and accept that it might not happen.
The film knows what it’s doing and Good’s character goes through a satisfying character-arc in this film because of it. As part of her journey, she learns to trust herself enough to know what’s good for her, without having to rely on pop-culture dating schemes and tricks. She learns to relax. Love by the 10th Date was filled with moments of comedic genius and tenderness that never felt forced. It felt like I was hanging out with a group of great, relatable people who were navigating life, love and career goals as best they could. While this film confirmed all of the reasons why I don’t go on dates with strangers, it helped me appreciate the struggle of those who do; and the long, difficult journey they have to go to finding themselves.
See You Next Wednesday,
Charlie
#megangood #love #lifetime
review
TL;DR
9/10
Love by the 10th Date is a progressive romantic comedy starring and executive produced by Meagan Good. The film is well paced and I enjoyed seeing Good’s Gabrielle bounce back from each hilarious misstep on her journey to finding love. The message of the film was refreshing and the cast had great chemistry with each other.
$
BB – Big Budget – $20mil+
SB- Small Budget – $5mil+
LB – Low Budget – $1 mil+
MB – Micro Budget – $250K+*
NB – No Budget – <$50K
*estimated
*
Meagan Good, Kellee Stewart, Kelly Rowland, Keri Hilson, Brandon T. Jackson, Flex Alexander, Chris Kellman, Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman, Christian Keyes, Trinidad James, Cat Deely, Jason Rogel, Conner Marx
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Romantic comedies are difficult to execute, because they are a hyper-realistic portrayal of falling in love. The characters in a romantic comedy have to make the audience fall in love with them in the first act. Meagan Good does a brilliant job of achieving that task. She’s adorable and she plays Gabrielle with such an earnest innocence, you can’t help but love her. Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman was particularly outstanding, as was Keri Hilson.
Charlie can be seen taking flights and acting like a thespian on Scribblebytes’ The Late Flight Show on YouTube. Click here to subscribe.
Episode referenced in blog: Dating Stranger Danger
The Late Flight Movie Blog 