Sep 13

Sep 13 TIFF 2020 film review: 'Monday'

If the conventional formula for romance is a meet-cute that leads to romance and ends with a kiss, the romantic drama 'Monday' (screening during the 45th Toronto International Film Festival) flips the tried-and-true formula on its head.

In short: Mickey and Chloe (Sebastian Stan and Denise Gough) drunkenly hook up on a Greek beach and spend sun-soaked days getting to know each other.

'Monday' begins with a graphic establishing that the film begins on a Friday. Mickey lives in Greece and Chloe is spending her last weekend in Greece before returning home to the United States in a few days. Every expectation is set for a weekend fling movie, with 'Monday' taking place over the course of a single weekend. It's natural to expect the movie to follow a trajectory, with the audience by years of movie conventions, that the next graphic will note the movie's next chapter will take place on a Saturday. So it's a bit jarring when the next graphic comes up ... and it's Friday again.

'Monday' treats end of the weekend as abstract concept for when the bloom is off the rose. The idea of a summer fling has been idealized in too many movies and songs to count. The allure of meeting a special someone in a lavish backdrop is usually where these stories begin, with them ending in some grand romantic gesture just a few days later. 'Monday' is largely an examination the often-generalized "happily ever after" - after a couple's hot and heavy fling becomes encumbered by the trappings of being in an actual, functioning relationship.

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If instant attraction at first sight is unpredictable and exciting, then 'Monday' asserts that an actual, functioning relationship is a series of intentional choices that happen after honeymoon phase is over. The very first segment of the film, tracking Mickey and Chloe's sex-filled courtship, sets an impossibly high bar of hedonistic pleasure seeking for the couple, as they slowly settle into a co-existence of routine and compromise. It’s intriguing to watch Mickey and Chloe try to recapture the excitement of their first weekend together, while navigating and compromising all the differences between the two characters.

As 'Monday' progresses, the movie introduces elements that could be points of contention for Mickey and Chloe as they figure out their life together. But the romance has a bad habit of building up a potential conflict ... and just disarming said conflict, then moving on. For example, when Chloe moves in with Mickey, she repeatedly asserts that she treasure one specific piece of furniture. But when it becomes nigh impossible to move this awkward piece of furniture into their new apartment together ... they just give up. Mickey doesn't make any gesture to somehow offset Chloe's love for this furniture. It's disposed of, she doesn't seem to mind (despite all her earlier protest) and it's never mentioned again. This pattern of "potential conflict - and now it's no longer a conflict" is repeated over and over. A more confident film would turn these conflicts into more serious fractures between Mickey and Chloe - or, conversely, these moments could used to show how they become stronger as a couple. Instead, 'Monday' opts for neither.

Final verdict: 'Monday' deserves credit for inverting the traditional meet-cute romance formula, but it's also a film without consequences that stick - so when the metaphorical Monday inevitably arrives ... it arrives with little meaning for Mickey and Chloe.