SLIFF 2015 Review – IT HAD TO BE YOU

Review by Stephen Jones

IT HAD TO BE YOU screens Friday, November 13th at 7:00pm at The Tivoli Theater as part of this year’s St. louis International Film Festival. Ticket information can be found HERE

IT HAD TO BE YOU is a very, very average movie elevated by the sheer likability of Cristin Milioti. Nothing in the movie is particularly groundbreaking, no envelopes are pushed, but Milioti radiates. She isn’t exactly new on the acting scene; she got her initial exposure (of note) being way too good for the last season of How I Met Your Mother, then a too-brief role in “Wolf of Wall Street,” but here she is carrying an entire movie on the back of her screen presence and charm.

The rest of the movie is perfectly fine, save the person-shaped section of drywall they cast as the male lead. The cast as a whole is mostly solid, some of the jokes have a really good Sarah Andersen vibe to them, and Sasha Gordon is a decent first time director. That her background is in music and she cast a musically talented actress who bears some resemblance to her in the lead role of the quirky young composer is a little first-time-writer, but there are much worse ways to show that hand.

Really, though, aside from Dan Soder showing about as much charisma as a hole in your pocket, there’s nothing to complain about in the movie. It’s not great, but it’s not trying to be. Gordon seems to be keenly aware that she’s a first time writer/director and plays it safe, but in a smart way. It’s the sort of small, low-stakes movie that can get one really good thing going for it, and Milioti is definitely that. I wouldn’t nearly nominate this for any big acting awards, but I could watch Milioti be a more human Zooey Deschanel all day.

But beyond that there isn’t much to say about it. It’s a good “let’s go to the movies, I don’t care what we see” pick. Or if you just went to see one of the heavier SLIFF films, this would be a very nice, light palate cleanser. It’s fun, entirely inoffensive (aside from some weird slurs thrown around by a character while yelling in the background, I have no idea what that was about…), and there are a lot worse things out there to see than this. Even if it won’t necessarily stick with you for very long after you leave the theater.