What Happens Later

The cloud of dissatisfaction I felt after watching it kept trying to reshape its molecules into a better movie, albeit one that could live only in my head.

The key is understanding that nobody makes it to that age without handling as much baggage as an airport. That’s what makes Ms. Ryan’s second directorial effort a surprising treat.

The chemistry between Duchovny and Ryan takes flight long before the planes are ready to board.

Life and love have a different taste when there are more years behind than ahead.

What Happens Later has such a chip on its shoulder about its relationship to its own maligned genre that it never actually gets around to much by way of pleasure, which you might argue is that genre’s main purpose.

Ryan’s return to the romcom might remind us of her rare skillset within the genre but it also makes us crave more, the answer to What Happens Later being ultimately: not that much.

A rom-com about how relationships tend to end up, rather than the more idealized version of Meg Ryan’s classic films.

A mild rom-com. It did not entirely work for me... I did not feel the chemistry between David Duchovny and Meg Ryan.

That Meg Ryan comeback. Let's pretend it didn't happen.

This isn’t a great movie by any stretch, but it’s nice to see Ryan back doing her thing while also showing us she’s matured as an actor in ways I wasn’t certain she would.