Romantic comedies centering on heterosexual couples typically treat marriage proposals as a man’s job: The woman waits passively to be swept off her feet by her beloved’s grand, romantic gesture. A newly released trailer for writer-director Sasha Gordon’s upcoming romcom “It Had to Be You” shows how the film defies convention.
“Sonia (Cristin Milioti) is a quirky, neurotic jingle writer who has always dreamt of a big and exciting life,” reads the film’s official synopsis. “Surprised by a sudden proposal and subsequent ultimatum from her easy-going boyfriend, Chris, Sonia has three days to decide whether she’ll join the ranks of her married friends or take a leap and pursue her fantasies. Blinded by anxiety, and pulled towards a fantastical idea of becoming the kind of woman she always idealized in films and literature, Sonia decides she isn’t ready to get married. Instead she will go on a solo trip to Rome and finally shed her inhibitions. However, reality quickly catches up to her as her journey proves a lot bumpier than the idyllic ‘Eat Pray Love’ she’d envisioned.”
Gordon says on the film’s website that the film is, in fact, a very personal one. “When my husband proposed (or tried to), rather than seeing hearts and hearing violins, I was filled with a panic and terror reserved for climactic horror movie scenes,” she writes. “I yelled, waved my arms in the air like a lunatic attempting to indicate that he should stop, and pretty soon was unable to see or hear as adrenaline took over my body. And keep in mind — this was a man I loved very much.”
Like many female filmmakers, the drive to see women represented on screen was a big influence for Gordon to make the film. “I wanted to see a movie that had a flawed, funny, searching protagonist that was a woman and not a man,” she said. “I wanted to portray a relationship in all its flawed everyday beauty and I wanted to do so through my particular female lens.”
Milioti played the mysterious, titular mother in “How I Met Your Mother.” Her other credits include “The Mindy Project,” “Fargo,” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.” “It Had to Be You” hits theaters on October 21.
