The first trailer for What Happens Later makes it clear the title isn’t supposed to have a question mark at the end. Meg Ryan, a queen of romantic comedies back when rom-coms were smiled upon by audiences and studios, returns to the genre as co-writer, director, and star, teaming with David Duchovny to tell the story of a former couple who find themselves stuck together in an airport.
“It has a relationship to movies from the ’40s, like Bringing Up Baby, in terms of the banter and the rhythm of things and a lot of that era of filmmaking,” explained Ryan in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “Nora Ephron used to say about rom-coms that they were really a secretly incredible delivery system to comment on the times, and we do that in this movie.”
The R-rated romantic comedy is based on Steven Dietz’s play Shooting Star, with Dietz, Ryan, and Kirk Lynn writing the screenplay. Producers include Jonathan Duffy, Kelly Williams, Laura D. Smith, and Kristin Mann.
Bleecker Street offers this synopsis:
“Two ex lovers, Bill (David Duchovny) and Willa (Meg Ryan) get snowed in at a regional airport overnight. Indefinitely delayed, Willa, a magical thinker, and Bill, a catastrophic one, find themselves just as attracted to and annoyed by one another as they did decades earlier. But as they unpack the riddle of their mutual past and compare their lives to the dreams they once shared, they begin to wonder if their reunion is mere coincidence, or something more enchanted.”
What Happens Later is opening in theaters on October 13, 2023.
