Then Came You (2018)

Directed by: Peter Hutchings | 98 minutes | adventure, comedy | Actors: Asa Butterfield, Maisie Williams, Nina Dobrev, Ken Jeong, Tyler Hoechlin, David Koechner, Peyton List, Tituss Burgess, Sonya Walger, Margot Bingham, Colin Moss, Briana Venskus, Ron Simons, Angel Valle Jr., L. Steven Taylor , Francesca Noel, Ann Osmond

They may like to be big and talk tough, but teenagers like to be immersed in tragedy. This can be seen in the range of young adult books that also highlight the heavier sides of life. Films about young people are no longer always just about puppy loves, insecurity and adolescent problems. Just take the book adaptations ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ (2014) and ‘Me and Earl and the Dying Girl’ (2015), in which the protagonists are confronted with their own mortality at a young age. This subgenre – as we may call it that by now – also includes ‘Then Came You’ (2018), a romantic teen drama directed by Peter Hutchings in which the lead roles are played by Asa Butterfield, Maisie Williams and Nina Dobrev. Unlike ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ and ‘Me and Earl and the Dying Girl’, this film is not based on a bestseller, but the story is entirely shot from the pen of Fergal Rock, an admittedly talented but also relatively inexperienced Irish filmmaker and screenwriter making his feature film debut. Hutchings previously made the flopped high school comedy ‘Cool Girls’ (2017), which attracted little attention on this side of the ocean.

It is clear right from the start: Skye (Maisie Williams), a seventeen-year-old British girl who has been living in the US for a number of years, does not have long to live. And that while she is still so full of zest for life. For Calvin (Asa Butterfield) three years older, the opposite actually applies: After a lot of setbacks, life becomes difficult for him and with every pain he feels he fears that his end is near. His doctor is so upset with his hypochondria that he sends him to a peer group for people with cancer, in the hope that the boy will repent. It’s such a support group that Skye and Calvin get to know each other. He initially dislikes the bouncy, licentious Skye, but she sees him as the ideal partner in crime to carry out her bucket list. He allows himself to be persuaded and during the adventures a deep friendship develops between the two. In most of these kinds of films, a romance develops between the two protagonists, but ‘Then Came You’ chooses a different route. Calvin, who has taken a job as a baggage carrier at the airport after a failed year in college, reveals to Skye that he is secretly in love with the much older, stunning flight attendant Izzy (Nina Dobrev) but is too shy to speak to her, let alone ask out. Skye decides to lend him a hand as a ‘postmodern cupid’ as she calls it herself and to make contact with Izzy. She is under the impression that Calvin, like Skye, is terminally ill and makes up with him. But is it out of pity or because she really likes him? And what happens when the truth comes out?

‘Then Came You’ makes fun of it, but it’s actually wry: if you’re seriously ill, people feel so sorry for you that you can get away with anything. Skye and Calvin are caught shoplifting (it was on the bucket list), but are not punished. In fact, the two officers on duty (Ken Jeong, who has a patent for these kind of lame roles, and Briana Venskus) give them free access to the police station and have the two teens take a lie detector test for fun and spend a few hours behind bars. . Pretty believable, but not real. It almost seems like a party when you are terminally ill, but of course it is far from that. Instead of focusing on the fascinatingly contradictory Skye, the focus in ‘Then Came You’ is for inexplicable reasons on the boring Calvin, who in the past has had some tough things to choose but now mainly wallows in uncertainty and self-pity. Asa Butterfield is more often typecast in these kinds of roles, as the mousy teenager yet to budge. Calvin’s romance with Izzy is not only hard to imagine, but also a huge distraction from what really matters to us: the friendship he develops with Skye. In it we feel the tenderness, love and integrity. Butterfield also has great chemistry with Williams. And that no romance ensues is only to be commended. But it’s a shame that Skye seems to have a minor role at one point, as all the focus is on an implausible and misguided romance.

Because not only is her character the most interesting, Williams also plays her role with verve and splash of the screen. The young actress who became famous thanks to ‘Game of Thrones’ has much more to offer than we’ve seen from her so far. As soon as she enters the picture, the film comes alive. We also see vulnerability and fear hidden behind all that zest for life, which she only shows when she dares to be herself completely. In those moments, ‘Then Came You’ shows what would have been possible if the writer had not succumbed to that romance that had to be dragged in by the hair, but had focused solely on the strength of the friendship between a terminal hedonist and a healthy one. hypochondriac. With the bubbly Maisie Williams and her compelling chemistry with Asa Butterfield, that would have been more than enough.