Match (2022) Film Review
Today, it’s fair to say we’ve all sailed the rough waters of online dating. All our cellphones have traces of shady apps that help in the process of finding soulmates and/or a potential partner for one night stands. And what can be commonly said about the use of those apps is that they’re supposed to make things easier.
Let’s face it. All it makes easier is the reveal of intentions. You don’t have to justify yourself when someone finds you in that territory. Meeting someone is still having to open yourself to an unknown machine of scrutiny, one that will carefully decide if you’re actually a good match. Or an error in the algorithm.
In Sean McGinly’s Match, not a piece of that discussion exists. It’s only hope that has brought Ian and Jennifer to this setting. Hope of finding chemistry, love, and whatever the night may bring. At first, the conversation feels a bit naive. The film expresses thoroughly the ideal version of the two subjects. After a few minutes, it becomes quite clear what McGinly is trying to accomplish with Match. Yes, it’s risky as it is interesting.
As the audience navigates alongside Ian and Jennifer through the process of becoming something other than results of a virtual search, we come to know what they’re looking for. I won’t reveal much of where the film leads to, but it’s a traditional runway of failures, misconceptions and odd realizations. Sure, they’re hopeful, but viewers aren’t. Paranoia is part of reactions, gaslighting and ghosting enter the stage, reality sets in. Match is a reflection of dating in the era of virtual modeling, and social anxiety, one that’s been extremely maximized in the last two years.
McGinly’s experimental style of storytelling is effective from beginning to end. Nothing in the film feels like a random decision. Match could have been a collection of text messages and emails displayed on the screen, but the director insists on the human element. He shows them at work as they go down a rabbit hole of constant deception and disappointment. Again, I can’t spoil what happens with Ian and Jennifer but if there’s something I felt, is that they were the most honest and transparent versions of two peers in this awful game of technology-assisted infatuation. It represents a director being in control of the plot and without assisting bent rules of the genre that would have made Match more interesting for some viewers.
It’s exactly what a film of this nature should reflect. Not all online dating practices end up in tragedy, even if it’s only emotional. But they’re a perfect farm for the dark side of humanity, where nothing is repressed and emotions can be shown in their most ambitious, unlimited fashion. Match tends to get off the rails with one of its characters but it feels secondary to the plot. Realism is huge as it should be in this film.
Match won’t change your opinion of online dating. Perhaps you’ll watch it with someone you met on one of those sites. But it’s interesting and effective enough to make you think a bit before pressing “send”. Everyone deserves to meet the love of their life. But does everyone deserve to go through something disturbing when finding a potential soulmate?
