Love can happen at any time or place and to anyone. Sometimes there’s a long, slow period of courtship and sometimes there’s an immediate attraction, a lightning bolt that strikes a person to let them know that they’ve just met their one person. But does the lighting always strike both people? This is the conflict at the centre of Young Werther—a film about a manic pixie dream boy who arrives in Toronto, meets a girl, and falls in immediate, unrequited love.
Douglas Booth stars as Werther, a free-spirited and mildly narcissistic young man who arrives in Toronto to procure a sculpture for his mother from his aunt. This is meant to be a quick stop on his way to a European summer with his best friend Paul (Jaouhar Ben Ayed), a hypochondriac who can barely stand to be present in or leave his hotel room. On his first day, he meets Charlotte (Alison Pill), who captures his imagination and heart. There’s a problem, though, in that Charlotte is engaged to Albert (Patrick J. Adams), a well-to-do lawyer focused on his work to nearly the point of neglect for her. So in love is Werther that he insinuates himself into their lives, becoming friends with both of them and becoming a constant companion to Charlotte.
If this sounds a bit like a novel from the 1800s, that’s because it (nearly) is. Despite being set in contemporary Toronto, the film is a reasonably faithful adaptation of the 1774 novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Goethe, and there are a multitude of touches that make this adaptation a little quirky and a lot twee. Much of the decor is mid-century, and dress is more formal than most wear today. The script is a mixture of modern slang and antiquated vernacular and cadence, and the characters’ activities tend to be the kinds of things one would imagine aristocrats doing in the late 18th century.
This could very easily end up being too gimmicky, but each of the actors understands the assignment and their dedication to the bit makes it work. Booth is wonderful as the central character. His Werther walks a fine line between the kind of whimsical naive goofball that would have existed in the 1770s and the kind that exists today. He’s impulsive and foolish, but also heartfelt and kind, and it’s very easy to root for him. He’s at his best delivering the madcap dialogue of a naive young man in love, and later as a slightly less naive young man with a wounded heart. He’s a manic pixie dream boy living in a manic pixie Toronto, and he holds the film together.
Pill is the other side of this coin, as Charlotte has to walk her own knife edge between the life she has chosen with her rich fiancé (and six siblings that she is raising) and the lovable, silly man she ends up spending her time with. Naturally, there comes a moment when she must choose between them, and when she does it is legitimately heartbreaking thanks to both actors’ performances and chemistry. The latter part of the film has Pill struggling with her chosen circumstances and those moments are her strongest in the film. It’s really something special to watch her work.
Patrick J. Adams also has a few moments in the film, and he has perhaps the toughest part to play. His character is a good, honest man, but he is also a little boring and too dedicated to his career. Albert is not a jerk, he’s just a bit bland, and that’s exactly what the story needs him to be, but when he finally gets his emotions up it’s a nice transition to witness.
There are a few other notable supporting performances in the film. 2024 Canadian Screen Award winner Amrit Kaur (The Queen of My Dreams) is on hand as Charlotte’s mildly scandalous best friend, as is Iris Apatow as Charlotte’s eldest younger sister Sissy. Both deliver what the film needs, with Apatow, in particular, delivering on that push-pull between the modern setting and the antiquated nature of her character. Scott Thompson is also on hand in a scene-stealing performance as Werther’s uncle, and he remains a reliable presence in any film that requires a man to deliver slightly off-colour jokes in a deadpan manner.
These performances and the script, from first-time feature director José Lourenço, take what could been an overly saccharine or insincere attempt at homage and instead present audiences with a lovely treat: a film that delivers on the idea of an 1800s romance comedy updated to a (mostly) modern setting. It could be overly sweet or silly, but it balances all these aspects to be something a little more than its parts. Young Werther starts out with silly, lovey scenes of people running down the street holding hands (the most intimate things two people can do) and eventually evolves into something deeper and a little more bittersweet and mature. It’s not a perfect film, but it is—in a word—delightful.
Young Werther opens in theatres this Friday, January 10.
