What if (PG-13)
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The original title of this movie is "The F Word," in which the 'F' presumably stands for 'friend'. But it was retitled for the U.S. and the U.K., because of possible confusion as to what the 'F' might stand for. Anyway... I really struggled with whether to put my review under "quirky" or "rom-coms", but ultimately chose the latter. I'm still not sure whether I made the right choice, but I suppose it doesn't matter. It's a reasonably amusing movie, with good characters, and a decent plot, even if I take some issues with it.

We first meet med school dropout Wallace (Daniel Radcliffe) sitting on his roof at night, listening to an old voice mail from his ex-girlfriend. He finally deletes it. (He had broken up with her after he caught her cheating on him.) Then he goes to a party at his friend Allan's (Adam Driver) house, where he meets Chantry (Zoe Kazan). Wallace and Chantry have a good time talking to each other, and at the end of the night, she gives him her phone number, while also casually mentioning her boyfriend. Later we see Wallace sitting on the roof again, and he lets the page with Chantry's number blow away in the wind. It seemed to me that he wasn't quite sure whether to hold onto it or not, because he was obviously disappointed that she had a boyfriend, but might have still wanted to be friends with her. My interpretation is that he wasn't holding on too tight to the page, but also wasn't actively discarding it, as if he was letting the wind act as fate for whether it took the page from him or not. But I could be mistaken about that. Maybe he really did fully intend to lose her number.

Anyway, they later run into each other again, and genuinely begin a friendship. I want to say that, to its credit, the movie never uses the term "friend zone". And I do think Wallace sincerely valued their friendship, even if he wished it could be more. He does eventually meet Chantry's boyfriend, Ben, who later has to travel to Dublin (from Toronto) for his work, which also had him traveling across Europe. Meanwhile, Wallace and Chantry's friendship continues to grow, and it's obvious that her feelings for him become pretty much as ambiguous as his for her. But she does her best to ignore that, because of her relationship with Ben. The two of them also spend a lot of time with Allan and a woman he had met at the same party, Nicole, who eventually get married. And Chantry is offered a promotion that would require her to move to Taiwan, and she's not at all sure whether she wants to take it or not, partly because it would mean leaving Wallace. Still, she's understandably upset when he finally admits to her that he wants to be more than friends. And I don't want to reveal any more of the plot.

So... I have mixed feelings about the movie, and about Wallace. I think that compared to a lot of guys, he wasn't so bad. But I also feel like it was wrong to keep his feelings secret for as long as he did. And yet, I admit it was a difficult situation for him to be in, not wanting to risk losing a deeply valued friendship. Honestly, in that situation, I have no idea what he should have done. (He has an interesting discussion about it with Allan at one point, about all his possible options, and none of them seemed good.) Anyway, part of me wants to dislike the movie for basically being about the "friend zone", even if the friendship was real. (Because a lot of guys do pretend to be friends with women for ulterior motives, which is totally inexcusable.) But I can't help liking the movie more than I dislike it, for various reasons. And... I don't know what else to say.