We all have certain types of movies that we can't resist, even if we know they'll be bad. I have many of these, but two of my most significant weak spots are high school movies and found footage movies. That makes Face2Face more of an inevitability than a decision for me.
Eventually, someone is going to get one of these movies told through new technologies right and I want to be there when it happens. People have been trying to figure out how to tell a story through webcams for a while. Unfriended, while a pretty forgettable horror movie in general, was really inventive with how it used a computer screen to tell a story. Other horror movies like The Den and V/H/S have used forms of this as well, eventually reaching a point that strains plausibility a little too much. I believe there's a John Cho thriller that premiered at Sundance this year that tries this style out. Even an episode of Modern Family told a story through a computer screen. It still feels more like a gimmick than something that adds to the overall discussion of film, but it's only a matter of time before someone really figures it out.
Face2Face keeps things simple for most of the movie: Teel (Daniel Johnson) is a social reject who, through Skype, tracks down Madison (Daniela Bobadilla), who he was friends with as a child. She lives across the country, and he hasn't spoken to in years. Most of the movie is their periodic discussions over several months. That much I really like. The movie lost me when it decided to crank things up to 11.
I'm going to treat this movie like a new release and not spoil too much. What I can say is that I didn't care for the misdirect with Teel's story. I like it in theory. I just think the movie pushes too hard to make the audience think one thing before revealing the truth about him. The twist could've had the same effect with half the effort to misdirect. People are already conditioned to see the story in this movie one way, which does most of the work for the filmmaker.
As for Madison's side of the story: calm the fuck down. They telegraphed where that was going pretty early, and I spent most of the time thinking "please don't go there". It all felt like drama for the sake of drama. I suppose it makes sense though why they did it. The film is designed for people half my age. There's not a lot of time for nuance, so they opt to make the conflict black and white. The person who is in the wrong is very, very in the wrong. I think I just wanted a tamer movie.
Tying into Madison's end of the story, the movie does run in the problem all these movies run into. No one carries a laptop around with them in the really dire moments in life. So, when Madison and Teel keep their webcams on in the climactic moments, it feels really false.
Face2Face is the kind of movie that I eat up and even enjoy complaining about the tropes that are really stupid that I secretly kind of love. The movie is great in the smaller moments and struggles when it overextends itself in the more dramatic beats. It's not perfect, but it fits in the middle of the Venn Diagram of my taste just enough to be worth seeing.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
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