Imagine Me & You (film)

I've been picking all the warm and fuzzy UK films lately, this one courtesy of some free tickets.

The basic plot is centred around a bride at her wedding day who fleetingly glimpses another woman and feels something she's never felt before. The woman turns out to be her florist and Rachel foolishly believes that becoming friends with Luce will work concurrently with the newlywed life she has with Hector. Wrong wrong wrong. After finding out that Luce is a lesbian, Rachel faces a choice of ruining her marriage for the less socially and parentally acceptable path of a homosexual relationship or soldiering on with Hec.

There's nothing wrong with Hec. Hec is, in fact, the most likeable character in the film. He's affable and suitably intelligent and not at all cruel or insensitive. He is also the one to make Rachel's decision when he finds out about her feelings for Luce and kindly moves out of the way, though not without understandable emotion. In the best performance of the entire film he explains that he would never want to be the reason that Rachel gave up true love or happiness, he would never want her to 'settle' for him. Hear, hear. His love for her is the most true and pure.

The biggest problem is that Rachel and Luce's supposed love is never really convincing. There's a friendly connection that's immediately evident but no chemistry. To be fair, there's no chemistry betwen Hec and Rachel either and they're married. The film's supposed to be about how love conquers all or there's someone for everyone (Hec meets someone else in the end credits) but is neither funny enough or heart-wrenching enough to be worthwhile. It isn't a long film but it feels too long, the pace is never where it needs to be to maintain momentum.

Just a quick mention of the title which is derived from The Turtles' song 'Happy Together' ("Imagine me and you, I do, I think about you day and night, it's only right, to think about the girl you love and hold her tight, so happy together...") which, although popular in its day (circa 1970s), I have to assume is raking in more royalties in the noughties since it was used in Kaufman's 'Adaptation'.

** - memorable signature song, not so the film