Premise: A documentary about New York singles exploring modern dating services.
This is a fairly short documentary about what it's like to date in New York City in 2020. It's unfortunate that they made this in 2020 in the middle of a pandemic. I'd bet the idea and planning for this movie came well before COVID shut everything down, because there's a big disconnect in the movie in relation to that. Most of the movie is interview-like segments. While the people are being interviewed, they are normally on some sort of dating app like OK Cupid, Match, or Tinder, and they talk through how they use the site or app. What they are looking for. The tricks they've learned to see through people. The code we all speak in on the services. The film gets a wide variety of ages, races, and orientations. It approaches all of them with a curious eye. Overall, it does a good job summing up what the first steps of dating are in a digital age. I knew of most of the sites. I think Seeking.com was the only one that was new to me. That make's sense. I'm not a rich single man looking to be a sugar daddy. It was a little depressing to realize that the person I related the most to was the guy who made a spreadsheet to catalog his dates.
This really doesn't address COVID in any significant way though. I could've forgiven that and chalked it up to a timeline thing. I'm not sure I'd want to watch a whole movie about dating in COVID conditions anyway. But, throughout the movie, they cut to outdoor New York shots where everyone is wearing masks. It's like they are acknowledging COVID then saying "but we're not going to get into that". And, the gimmick of the movie does get old by the end of it. It's nice that there's a little follow up with people from earlier, but I sure felt bored by the end. There really are only so many ways to point out that people aren't transparent on the internet and it's hard to know if you really like someone until you meet them face to face.
Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend
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