About Fate

It’s Kind of a Funny Story castmates Thomas Mann and Emma Roberts reunite – appropriately embodying the title of About Fate. Writer Tiffany Paulsen finds room this year for another one of her holiday-themed romcoms, this time slotting herself firmly into Amazon Prime’s Christmas releases. As expected of the writer who worked on Netflix’s Holidate, staples of her writing include using seasonal events, workshop romantic agreements and circumstantial dates leading to true love. Following Margot and Griffin’s New Year’s Eve mishaps, About Fate plays on the idea of looking for deeper meaning in the little coincidences of life.

The script plays on foreshadowing and irony to really lean into the idea of “fate”. A lot of the dialogue is dominated by characters outlining the plot – from “I can’t just pick up some random guy off the street and bring him to my sister’s wedding” to “Relax, it’s not like you’re getting into a fight at my sister’s wedding”. While the abundance of conveniences can be excused because of the chosen premise, these go beyond just the romantic aspect of it all. Even simple little acts the characters do that barely contribute to the plot cannot function without the script helping it along. The worst part is, these aren’t subtle or clever at all, breaking the immersion of the viewers.

There are plenty of long silences that seem to be for comedic purposes, but the timing is off so they come across as awkward and unnecessary. About Fate also tries to give depth to the characters by including familial conflict, but it’s not fleshed out enough to really make an impact. This is a shame because, in the 100-minute runtime, there’s plenty of room for deeper character arcs. But the picture instead adds pointless scenes and complications, like bringing back exes that go on to do little and a karate sequence that seems misplaced. At the very least, Mann and Roberts have a working chemistry. Mann in particular does a fantastic job of making overly-fluffed lines sound believable.

Visually, the framing and angles are questionable and void of any creativity. The film tries similar editing techniques to Look Both Ways but fails because of the all-over-place sequence of events. About Fate and its actors try, but they’re let down by a too-obvious and lacking script, and monotone production efforts.

Mae Trumata

About Fate is released on Amazon Prime Video on 16^th December 2022.

Watch the trailer for About Fate here: