YOUNG WERTHER: 2 ½ STARS. “a lovesick story and a study of complicated friendships.”
SYNOPSIS: A modern riff on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s 18th-century novella “The Sorrows of Young Werther,” “Young Werther,” now playing in theatres, isn’t exactly a love story. Instead, it’s a lovesick story and a study of complicated friendships.
CAST: Douglas Booth, Alison Pill, Iris Apatow, Amrit Kaur, Jaouhar Ben Ayed, Patrick J. Adams. Directed by José Avelino Gilles Corbett Lourenço.
REVIEW: “Young Werther” takes a love-at-first-sight premise, the stuff of rom coms, and uses that as a springboard to examine self-absorbed youth, unrequited love, rejection and the true nature of love.
Douglas Booth plays the narcissistic Werther as an upper-class twit, a guy who slides through life on a runway greased with money, privilege and his personal so-called charm. He is used to getting what he wants, and he wants Charlotte (Alison Pill). Trouble is, she’s the soon-to-be wife of likeable lawyer Albert (Patrick J. Adams).
Over the years, Goethe’s 18th-century novella of unrequited love and the wacky lengths Werther goes to win over Charlotte has inspired many a rom com, and that familiarity blunts some of the effectiveness of this retelling. It feels a bit “been there, done that” because of the origin’s pervasive influence on the genre.
This story of a charming pest (or is he a love-sick stalker and homewrecker?) and his antics doesn’t bring much in the way of reinvention until the film’s final moments. Goethe’s novella is a tragedy, but the film, adapted by Lourenço, is rom commy up until its rushed ending, during which things take a sober turn as Werther lets go of the self-absorption of youth and discovers a modicum of self-awareness. Until then Werther’s alleged charm is more boyish arrogance than actual charisma.
Booth and Pill, however, have good chemistry and bask in the reflected glow of the sparkling rom com sheen José Avelino Gilles Corbett Lourenço liberally applies to every frame. Ditto for Toronto, which, in the lens of cinematographer Nick Haight, looks fantastic.
“Young Werther” is a light and frothy ride, but without the philosophical underpinnings of the source material.
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