If I’d written this immediately after watching the film , I think I would have mostly had negative things to say. I’d talk about how I couldn’t find any way into the film. Not a single character felt like they gave me an entry point. Wall to wall unrelateable assholes. And the score didn’t help, feeling like it was so distracting and separate to the film as to be an additional alienating factor.

But it’s been a while since I’ve…

This felt very much like an indie rom-com written in 2019. And by that, I mean that it felt less like a screenplay and more like a series of tweets from someone B-grade Twitter jokester occasionally punctuated by overly sentimental monologues shoehorned in from other, better romantic comedies.

In its defence though I can say two things. First, Maya Erskine does an amazing job with her role, even though she is effectively written out of the entire third act. And…

I fucking LOVE this film. It's my ultimate comfort film.

BUT.

There's a bit, a plot point, where Mary McDonnell was pretending to be hooked up with Stephen Tobolowsky on a computer date to get his office access card and his voice print and stuff and she gets stung. Except they make it look like she's not stung. And then, being a pro grifter, she goes "This is the last computer date I go on" and Ben Kingsley mafia-hacker goes…

If you were to draw a venn diagram of three of my favourite films — Rocky, Full Metal Jacket and The Social Network — right in the middle you’d find Whiplash. In the same way that Jaws isn’t really a film about a shark, this isn’t really a film about drumming. It’s a film about obsession. It’s a film about drive and being driven. It’s a film about sacrifice.

There’s so much to like about this film. The performances from…