Parallel Lines Review: Lili Reinhart convinces everyone

What if you get pregnant on the day of your graduation? What would you do?

This is the question he has to answer Lili Reinhart in “Parallel Lines” – Look Both Ways – in the new film by Wanuri Kahiu, that after “friend” of 2018 returns to directing with a romantic comedy about the crowd of Sliding Doorscult of Peter Howitt of 1998, from which however it cleverly departs.

Parallel lines, from Available August 17th are Netflix, is an unassuming film. A simple romantic comedy on the line of What If, destined to be forgotten but that never falls into banality thanks above all to the successful interpretation of Lili Reinhart, which shines in a context that is at times disappointing.

Parallel Lines: Plot Cast and Characters

Natalie Bennet (Lili Reinhart) has just graduated and the next day will leave for Los Angeles with her best friend Cara (Aisha Dee). He is enthusiastic, he can’t wait to make his dreams come true, at least until his life comes at a crossroads and how Gwyneth Paltrow in Sliding Doors, two possibilities will present themselves to be the backdrop to a romantic comedy in which the woman is the protagonist. The difference from the cult from Howitt is that this time it will not be a trifle like closing a metro door to open the possibilities, but a fact that represents everything but a trifle.

One day after the big jump, in fact, Natalie finds herself having to take a pregnancy test following the night she spent with her best friend Gabe (Danny Ramirez). It is at this point that dualism takes hold and Lili Reinhart becomes the Gwynett Paltrow of millennials; on the one hand Natalie will become pregnant and she will have to face the life of the mother of the family, on the other hand she will leave in pursuit of her dreams.

Parallel Lines Review: Destiny is in our hands

Directed by the award-winning Wanuri Kahiu“Parallel lines” is one Sliding Doors with decidedly less dramatic features, which lives according to the female figure thanks above all to the interpretation of its protagonist. On the one hand, this film has the great merit of making women feel the power, the courage not to fall in the face of one of the biggest obstacles: the impossibility of finding a balance between the life of the mother of the family and her career. . On the other hand, the film avoids deepening any dynamic by slyly misleading any possible criticism, probably in order not to lose sight of the lightness it wants to convey, thus falling into all the clichés of romantic comedy.

Thanks to the film we reflect on who is the proponent of his own destiny looking in both directions just as the original title wants to tell us, but which translation does not reach the goal because, to the detriment of what someone claims, it does a little penalty (like other cases that we are not going to emphasize).

“Parallel lines” it never claims to raise itself to a social denunciation (which would have been too much for a comedy that avoids deepening perhaps out of fear) and simply describes scrupulously the dualism that every woman has to face. The impossibility of coexistence of two ideals is by now rooted in society and is reflected in this film thanks to the chromatic change, in function of a Natalie also here distinguished with a haircut (superfluous distinction that shouts at the cliché, when the chromatic distinction was enough ): strong, bright and harmonious colors alternate with darker and gray shades in a good job of photography, as if to tell us that happiness comes only from one’s work success.

But if these colors could meet what would happen? This is what Some time wants to convey. Even if it doesn’t seem like we are the ones to choose, and we can decide where, how and when. The message is only one, but different for everyone; we understand the difficulties encountered in her twenties thanks to Natalie, in which Lili Reinhart immerses herself, giving authenticity to every move and expression and we reflect on the possibilities before us.

So, to conclude, we at Movie Blog feel we can recommend this film because it has no pretensions, as the release date shows.