Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed regional airport in the United States, the comedy/drama film “What Happens Later” (based on the play “Shooting Star”) features an all-white cast of characters representing the middle-class.
Culture Clash: After not seeing each other for years, two ex-lovers find out that they are taking the same plane flight, and they start arguing about their relationship when they get stuck at the airport after the plane flight is delayed because of a snowstorm.
Culture Audience: “What Happens Later” will appeal primarily to fans of stars Meg Ryan and David Duchovny, because there is very little that is appealing about this annoying and frequently boring movie.
David Duchovny and Meg Ryan in “What Happens Later” (Photo courtesy of Bleecker Street)
Almost everything in “What Happens Later” shows two former lovers bickering and bantering with each other, after not seeing each other for years, while their plane flight is delayed overnight at an airport because of a snowstorm. “What Happens Later” should’ve been called “What Happens When Co-Stars With No Chemistry Together Try and Fail to Make a Cute Romantic Comedy.” No airport during a snowstorm gets this deserted, although the movie’s awful dialogue is enough to clear a room.
Directed by Meg Ryan, “What Happens Later” was co-written by Ryan, Steven Dietz and Kirk Lynn. The movie is based on Dietz’s play “Shooting Star.” It’s the type of movie where only two people have the on-screen speaking roles. And that means if viewers are stuck with these two people for the entire movie, then these two people better be compelling to watch. Unfortunately, “What Happens Later” makes these two people the opposite of compelling.
Almost everything in the movie takes place at an unnamed regional airport in the United States. The movie’s two main characters are Wilhelmina “Willa” Davis (played by Ryan) and William “Bill” Davis (played by David Duchovny), who used to be college sweethearts, but they broke up about 35 years ago and haven’t seen each other in about 20 years. Willa and Bill were never married. They have the same last name by sheer coincidence.
Willa and Bill had a bitter breakup and still haven’t had closure over it. And so, when they first see each other at this airport, they each try to avoid being seen by the other person. Eventually, they make eye contact and start talking to each other when they find out that they’re both on the same plane flight to Boston.
Willa, who lives “in the woods” north of Boston, is a wellness practictioner in the “healing arts.” She has arthritis in one of her hips and walks with a limp. Willa is carrying a “healing” rain stick with her. She says she’s flying to meet a female friend/client who needs a healing session because the friend is going through a difficult divorce. Willa tells Bill that she’s never been married and has no children.
Bill, who lives in Austin, is a businessman who works for a company that “liquefies a lot of damaged assets,” he tells Willa. When Bill and Willa were a couple, he used to be a poet and songwriter. Bill is married to a woman named Bethany, and they have a teenage daughter named Rose. Bill doesn’t approve of Rose’s wish to become a dancer, because he thinks she should have a more financially stable career. Bill tells Willa that he’s upset because Rose doesn’t want to talk to him.
During the course of this slog of a movie, viewers find out that Willa is still angry at Bill for breaking up with her. The way she remembers it, Bill told Willa that he was breaking up with her because he didn’t like her behavior. Bill denies that he ever said that was the reason for the breakup. Eventually, it’s revealed that when Willa and Bill were a couple, they tried having an open relationship, but he got jealous and resentful that Willa seemed to be having too much fun with her other lovers.
About 15 minutes into the movie, Willa and Bill find out that their flight has been delayed due to a snowstorm, so they are stuck at the airport and have to spend the night there. As time goes on in the movie, the airport unrealistically becomes increasingly empty until at one point in the movie, it looks like Willa and Dave are the only people spending the night at a darkened airport. It all looks so phony and ridiculous.
And let’s not get started on the extremely annoying announcements (voiced by Hal Liggett) over the public address system that sound like lines from a poorly written soap opera, not a real airport. Adding to the cheesiness of it all, the airport plays Muzak versions of 1990s songs such as Sheryl Crow’s “My Favorite Mistake” and Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life.” The movie’s lighting looks like it’s taken straight from the stage play. Cinematically, it looks like an awkward transition.
The vast majority of “What Happens Later” consists of Willa and Bill spewing repetitive and irritating back-and-forth barbs where they blame each other over what went wrong in their relationship, insult each other, and nitpick over trivial things about their trip. And you know where all of this is going, of course. The “anger” is supposed to really be a mask for the “passion” that Willa and Bill supposedly still have for each other.
The problem is that Willa and Bill are two miserably neurotic people who are obviously not compatible together. There’s nothing in the movie to indicate that a romantic reunion between these two would actually be the right decision for both of them. And because secrets are revealed, Willa and Bill also show themselves to be dishonest with each other. In other words, there’s no good reason for viewers to root for this ex-couple to get back together. Ryan and Duchovny try to cover up their lack of chemistry with smirks and sarcasm, but it all looks so uncomfortable and forced.
Here’s an example of the horribly written conversations in the movie: In an early scene in the film, when Willa tells Bill that her client is fighting for custody of three dogs in the client’s divorce battle, Bill makes this quip that he thinks is hilarious: “You know what they say about a dog who represents herself in court: She has a bitch for a client.”
Willa tells Bill that this particular day is an extra-magical day because it’s Leap Day (February 29). She adds, “On this extra-magical day, are you on a trip or a journey?” When Bill looks confused, Willa explains: “A trip is when you try to reach a destination. A journey is when you try to reach a goal, like serenity or awareness.” Whether you want to call it a trip, a journey or something else, “What Happens Later” is a cringeworthy ride where the best part is when it’s finally over.
Bleecker Street released “What Happens Later” in U.S. cinemas on November 3, 2023. The movie was released on digital and VOD on November 28, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, “The Craft: Legacy” features a predominantly white cast (with some Latinos and African Americans) representing the middle-class.
Culture Clash: Four teenage witches use their witchcraft to turn a school bully into a politically correct, enlightened person, but they find out these actions cause a major backlash.
Culture Audience: “The Craft: Legacy” will appeal primarily to people who like stories about witches that play it very safe.
David Duchovny, Michelle Monaghan and Cailee Spaeny in “The Craft: Legacy” (Photo courtesy of Rafy Photography/Columbia Pictures)
Just like Blumhouse Productions’ 2019 remake of the sorority horror flick “Black Christmas,” the foundation of Blumhouse Productions’ 2020 teenage witch film “The Craft: Legacy” (a reimagining of the 1996 movie “The Craft”) is about empowering women in the #MeToo feminist era. But “The Craft: Legacy” (written and directed by Zoe Lister-Jones) makes the same mistake that the 2019 remake of “Black Christmas” did: By telegraphing these feminist intentions so early in the movie, it’s very easy to figure out who the “villains” are in the story.
The heavy-handed preachiness of “The Craft: Legacy” would be easier to take if the movie delivered a better story that wasn’t filled with major plot holes and had a more consistent tone. This movie needed more horror gravitas and more impressive visual effects instead of ill-suited comedic bits and cheap-looking visual effects that weaken the story’s message.
There are parts of “The Craft: Legacy” that work fairly well: The cast members do adequately good jobs in their roles, and there’s a realistic handling of awkward issues in blended families. But too many other parts of the movie don’t work well at all and are at times quite dull and predictable.
“Black Christmas” and its remakes at least made concerted efforts to be terrifying. By contrast, “The Craft: Legacy,” which obviously has a younger audience in mind than an adult-oriented slasher flick like “Black Christmas,” only has mild scares that are disappointing and often take a back seat to the movie wanting to look more like a teen drama than a horror film. That doesn’t mean that “The Craft: Legacy” had to have a lot of gore, but there are several noteworthy horror movies that are suitable for underage audiences and are still able to be effectively terrifying. Some examples include 1982’s “Poltergeist,” 2001’s “The Others” and 2002’s “The Ring.”
The basic premise of “The Craft” remains intact in “The Craft: Legacy.” Three teenage witches, who are social outcasts at their high school in an unnamed U.S. city, are powerless because they need a fourth witch to complete the circle of their coven. They find out that a new outsider girl at their school is also a witch, and they invite her to join their coven. The four teen witches then use their newfound magical powers to make their wishes come true and get revenge on people who hurt them in some way. The “new girl” is the story’s main protagonist.
In “The Craft,” Neve Campbell, Fairuza Balk, and Rachel True were the original trio of witches, while Robin Tunney played the “new girl” invited into the coven. In “The Craft: Legacy,” the “new girl” is Lily Schechner (played by Cailee Spaeny), while the original coven trio consists of sassy transgender Lourdes (played by Zoey Luna), goofy jokester Frankie (played by Gideon Adlon) and Afrocentric-minded Tabby (played by Lovie Simone).
Spaeny gets the most screen time of the four, and she does a fairly good job in portraying Lily’s angst, although she’s not as assertive as Tunney’s “newbie” character in “The Craft.” Lily is the only one of the four witches whose home life and family are shown in the movie. It’s a big change from the 1996 “The Craft,” where viewers got to see the home lives and family members of three out of the four witches.
Luna is memorable as Lourdes, the member of the coven who’s the most emotionally mature and the unofficial “alpha female” of the group. Adlon will either delight or annoy people with how she portrays Frankie, whose hyperactive and somewhat ditzy energy can get on people’s nerves after a while. Just like True’s character in “The Craft” movie, Simone plays the “supportive friend” whose personality is overshadowed by the other members of the coven.
“The Craft” was set in a private Catholic school where the students had to wear uniforms, whereas “The Craft: Legacy” is set in a regular public school. It’s a change of setting that alters the impact of what being an “outsider” in the school really means. Someone who wears Goth makeup (as does one of the teenage witches in each “Craft” movie) and who’s suspected of being a witch is less likely to be a considered a rebel or an outcast at a public school, compared to a private Catholic school with strict policies about religion, hair, clothes and makeup.
Because the school in the original “The Craft” movie was a private institution, there was more of an elitist aura to the school, which made the teen witches’ “outsider” status a little bit more socially dangerous for them at the school. The World Wide Web was fairly new in the mid-1990s. Social media and smartphones didn’t exist back then. Therefore, the teen witches of “The Craft” probably felt more isolated for being “different” than they would be in modern times when they could find other like-minded people on the Internet.
In “The Craft: Legacy,” social media is not seen or mentioned at all, which is probably writer/director Lister-Jones’ way of trying not to make the movie look too dated when it’s viewed years from now. In fact, the movie has several “throwback” nods to pop culture from a past era. For example, during a car ride, Lily and her mother sing Alanis Morissette’s 1995 hit “Hand in My Pocket.” And in multiple scenes, Lourdes uses a Polaroid camera.
Lily is a pixie-ish and introverted only child who has recently moved to the area with her single mother Helen Schechner (played by Michelle Monaghan), who is a therapist from New Jersey. Lily mentions later in the story that she doesn’t know who her father is, and Helen has never told her. Helen and Lily have relocated because Helen is moving in with her boyfriend Adam Harrison (played by David Duchovny), a motivational speaker/author whose specialty is giving empowering advice and self-help therapy for men.
Adam has three teenage sons, who are introduced to Lily for the first time on the day that Lily and Helen arrive to move into their two-story house. Oldest son Isaiah (played by Donald MacLean Jr.) is about 17 years old. Middle son Jacob (played by Charles Vandervaart) is about 16 years old. Youngest son Abe (played by Julian Grey) is about 14 years old. People who see this movie and have knowledge of Judeo-Christian history will notice right away how biblical these names are.
Isaiah is a “strong, silent type” who’s somewhat of an enigma. Jacob is a popular but brooding heartthrob at school. (Goofball witch Frankie has a mild crush on Jacob.) Abe seems to be the kindest and most sensitive of the three brothers, and he’s the only one of the brothers to attempt to befriend Lily. It’s strange that Helen and Adam would wait until move-in day for their children to meet each other for the first time, but there are stranger things that have happened in real life.
Meanwhile, although Adam isn’t overtly sexist, he is very much about male bonding and men’s rights. Living with two females in the house is quite an adjustment for him and his sons. (The mother of Adam’s sons is not seen or mentioned in the movie.) Adam spends a lot of time traveling to host male-only retreats, where he helps men get in touch with their masculinity and innermost feelings. Adam has a mantra that he instills in his sons and his followers: “Power is order.”
Lily’s mother Helen has a different view of power: She constantly tells Lily, “Your differences are your power.” It’s clear that Lily and Helen both know that Lily has supernatural powers, but Lily hasn’t been able to harness those powers for anything major that would fully expose her for being a witch. That is, until she joins the coven.
Adam has gotten notoriety for a book called “Hollowed Masculinity,” which basically preaches that men shouldn’t be afraid of or apologetic for being dominant leaders. One day, while Lily is getting to know the different rooms in her new home, she goes in the home’s study/library and sees the book. When she picks up the book, she drops it quickly, as if the book could’ve burned her. This movie is not subtle at all.
Just like in “The Craft,” there’s a school bully who gets put under a spell by the witches. In “The Craft: Legacy,” the bully’s name is Timmy (played by Nicholas Galitzine), and he happens to be Jacob’s best friend. Lily has a humiliating experience in her first day at the school, when she gets her menstrual period while she’s sitting down at a desk in class. Lily doesn’t know that she’s gotten her period until Timmy announces it and points out the blood on the floor to everyone in the class. “Did you drop something?” Timmy sneers. And then he cruelly adds, “It looks like a crime scene.”
A mortified Lily runs into a restroom and locks herself into a stall to clean up after herself. And she’s soon followed by Lourdes, Frankie and Tabby, who give her sympathy and tell Lily that Timmy has bullied them too. Tabby offers her gym shorts for Lily to wear, since Lily’s jeans are too bloody to put back on again. It’s a generous and kind gesture that goes a long way, because Lily ultimately befriends this trio.
Another big difference between “The Craft” and “The Craft: Legacy” is that the newcomer fourth witch joins the coven a lot quicker in “The Craft: Legacy.” Lily becomes a part of their group within a few days of knowing Lourdes, Frankie and Tabby. They begin to suspect that Lily’s a witch when Timmy taunts Lily again in the school hallway, and she’s able to throw Timmy up against a locker and make him fall down, just by using her mind. This incident puts both Timmy and Lily in detention.
While she’s in detention, Lily begins to hear the voices of the other witches talking to her in her mind. They tell her to meet them in a hallway restroom, and she does. And that’s how Lourdes, Frankie and Tabby are able to confirm that Lily is a witch too. Not long after that, all of four of them start doing spell experiments, such as levitating, before they decide to unleash their full powers. And just like in the first “Craft” movie, snakes and butterflies are in some scenes in the movie where supernatural things happen.
One of the frustrating things about “The Craft: Legacy” is that it doesn’t really expound on the unique powers that each witch has in this coven. Lourdes represents the north, with her power derived from the earth. Frankie’s power represents the east, with her power derived from air. Tabby’s power represents the south, with her power derived from fire. And to complete the circle, Lily’s power represents the west, with her power derived from water.
You would think that these specific powers would be incorporated more into the spells that they cast on people. But aside from some cutesy colors that swirl around when they chant, their unique powers are all talk and almost no action. There are lots of ways to cause witchcraft terror by using the earth, air, fire or water, but those avenues are not fully explored in this movie. Maybe the movie’s budget was too low for the visual effects that would be needed.
And speaking of visual effects, the witch characters in “The Craft: Legacy” mention being fans of the 2008 teen vampire film “Twilight” multiple times. And it’s somewhat ironic, because the much-ridiculed “sparkling vampire” aspects of “Twilight” get sort of a nod in “The Craft: Legacy,” in scenes where there are sparkly effects around the witches, most notably when Lily takes a bath in sparkly purple water.
It’s an aesthetic that’s more like “My Little Pony” instead of “Mistress of the Dark,” and it’s really hard to take “The Craft: Legacy” seriously as a horror movie at that point. There are scenes in the Disney movie “Maleficent” that are scarier than “The Craft: Legacy,” and that’s a major disappointment because Blumhouse movies shouldn’t skimp on the scares.
Another aspect of the film that’s dangled in front of viewers and never quite comes to fruition is that it’s mentioned fairly early on that the foursome coven will get to enact four stages of their full powers: Stage One is telekinesis. Stage Two is mind infiltration. Stage Four is shapeshifting. Frankie tells Lily that Stage Three will be revealed later. But that reveal is another big disappointment. And the shapeshifting (which was used to great effect in the 1996 “Craft” movie) becomes an abandoned idea for the witches in “The Craft: Legacy.”
Whereas the original “Craft” movie had the over-the-top, unhinged performance of Balk as the “loose cannon” witch of the group, there is no such unpredictable personality in this “Craft: Legacy” coven. In fact, all of the witches in this coven are extremely cautious of not going too far to hurt people. If you can believe it, these witches are too politically correct, which doesn’t really work in a story that’s supposed to be about teen witches who want to get revenge on people who’ve tormented them.
Instead of a variety of individual spells that made the original “Craft” movie entertaining to watch, the story of “The Craft: Legacy” focuses on one big group spell, which they put on Timmy. After the spell, he goes from being a sexist bully to a “woke” guy who’s a walking stereotype of an uber-sensitive, progressive liberal. While that mindset might be scary to people on certain ends of the political spectrum, this movie should have been more about horror instead of the political leanings of people who aren’t even old enough to vote.
“The Craft” had a spell put on the class bully so that he would be lovesick over the newbie witch. “The Craft: Legacy” goes one step further and makes the reformed bully not only a potential love interest for the newbie witch (Lily), but he also becomes a feminist who would rather pal around with all four of the witches than hang out with his male buddies. It’s the movie’s way of saying that men can be feminists too, but the message ultimately isn’t that great if the only way a male in this story becomes an “enlightened” feminist is if he’s “tricked” into it by a witch’s spell.
Galitzine is quite good in his role as Timmy, who goes through this drastic personality change. One of the best scenes in the movie is when Timmy and his four new gal pals hang out together and confess some of their biggest secrets. Timmy’s biggest secret is one of the movie’s few major surprises. It’s an emotional scene, but it’s completely different from the “jokey teen antics” tone that the movie was going for in the first half of the film.
After Timmy’s secret is revealed, things take a dark turn in the movie, which would’ve benefited from a dark tone from the beginning. But by the time the big showdown happens at the end of the movie, there are two major plot holes that just can’t redeem this disappointing film.
The first major plot hole involves a “bound spell” that prevents a witch or witches from casting any more spells to do harm. And yet during the big showdown, this “bound spell” is completely forgotten in the plot, as if it never happened. The second big plot hole involves the reveal of the chief villain, who should have several allies in the movie’s climactic showdown, but the villain inexplicably and strangely is the only adversary in this big fight.
And this crucial action sequence in the movie is more talk than suspenseful action. The action just brings more sparkles instead of true terror. There are other parts of the movie that are even more tedious and might induce boredom or the urge to go to sleep.
There’s a “surprise” cameo at the end of the film that isn’t much of a surprise. (And if people really want to know who does this cameo, it’s not a secret, because this person’s name is in the Internet Movie Database list of cast members for “The Craft: Legacy.“) The cameo isn’t that big of a deal because this person does not speak any lines in the movie and is only seen in the last few seconds of the film.
“The Craft: Legacy” seems to have had the right intentions when it was conceived as an updated version of “The Craft.” But somewhere along the way, the filmmakers made the mistake of diminishing the horror of the original “Craft” movie and making “The Craft: Legacy” more of a sparkly teen soap opera.
Columbia Pictures released “The Craft: Legacy” on digital and VOD October 28, 2020.
David Duchovny at 2017 New York Comic Con in New York City (Photo by Carla Hay)
The next mind-bending chapter of “The X-Files” is a thrilling, 10-episode event series from creator/executive producer Chris Carter, with stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson re-inhabiting their roles as iconic FBI Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. Mitch Pileggi also returns as FBI assistant director Walter Skinner, Mulder and Scully’s boss, who walks a fine line between loyalty to these investigators and accountability to his superiors.
This marks the momentous return of the Emmy-winning pop-culture phenomenon, which remains one of the longest-running sci-fi series in network television history. In the U.S., “The X-Files” revival (the show’s 11th season) premieres on Fox on January 3, 2018. The upcoming event series will encompass a mixture of stand-alone episodes and those that further the original show’s seminal mythology. Picking up after the last event series’ cliffhanger, Mulder and Scully learn that they aren’t the only ones desperately searching for their long-lost son, William. The very fate of the world may depend on it.
“The X-Files” originally premiered in September 1993. Over the course of its original nine-season run, the influential series went from breakout sci-fi favorite to massive global hit, and became one of the most successful television dramas of all time. The show—which earned 16 Emmy Awards, five Golden Globes and a Peabody Award—follows FBI special agents Scully and Mulder as they investigate unexplained cases—“X-Files —for which the only answers involve paranormal phenomena. The show was revived for a 10th season, which aired in 2016. The all-new episodes for 2018 will feature appearances by guest stars, including Joel McHale, Lauren Ambrose, Haley Joel Osment and Robbie Amell. This what Duchovny said in a roundtable interview that he did with me and other journalists at 2017 New York Comic Con.
What can you say about the relationship between Mulder and Scully in this new season of “The X-Files”?
I don’t know what I’m allowed to tell. It’s as it was. Chris [Carter] was smart from the very beginning. When you have a serialized television show that’s had well over 200 episodes, you’ve got to parcel the goodness little by little. As much as fans think they want this or that, once you cross the line, it’s hard to go back over to the other side.
I think what’s interesting about the relationship is their working partnership. They’re quite reliant on one another. They [the viewers] may want a sex scene, but they really don’t, especially at the age we are at right now.
Does all this fan expectation of a Mulder/Scully romance inform how you play your role?
Absolutely not. I don’t mean to be disrespectful to the fans, but that’s not the way I approach my job. If I was to write [an “X-Files” episode], I might think of the relationship. In fact, the ones that I’ve written, I’m kind of comfortable loosening them up outside of the work. But as an actor, if I start thinking about that kind of crap, then I’m lost. When you see your [significant other], do you think, “How is this being perceived by others?”
As an actor, you’re constantly guarding against any kind of self-consciousness. That’s the death of acting: somebody watching themselves. If you start thinking about people watching you, it’s a back door to your own self-consciousness. [He says jokingly] I have to forget this conversation by the time I get back on set.
What’s the most important thing you’ve learned from Chris Carter that’s helped you understand the Mulder character over the years?
I don’t know. I’m kind of headstrong about it. At some point, I do the lines as they’re written. But at some point, I decided I knew who this guy was, and this was my character. I was playing it, and I owned it. And that could to be to the detriment of my work. I don’t know.
In retrospect, the characters I’m attracted to playing seem to be people who speak the truth, no matter what the consequences. The first time I did that was probably with Mulder. So I think that I learned something about what I’m drawn to as a performer.
To me, that was the inherent basis of the character: He was a guy who didn’t mind being a fool. I could trace that back to Chris, for sure.
What can you share about Season 11 of “The X-Files”?
The last time we did [a season of “The X-Files”] it was six episodes, and the last time we did an “X-Files” movie was in 2008. We had a lot of exposition to cover. That took two episodes. And then in the end, we had to wrap it up. That took an episode. So that left us with three episodes, which is not enough.
So now, we have 10 episodes. We do have some [things] that get us out of the mess we got ourselves into at the end [of Season 10, but that’s dispensed with rather quickly, so that we can do the show we always did, which was less self-consciously about the show itself, which is unfortunately what those episodes tend to be.
Even if they’re interesting mythology, they’re about the show. It was tough getting everyone on the same page in the same city. This time around [the season’s film took] four months. It’s tough, but we pulled it off, and here we are.
How do you think Mulder has evolved over the years?
I don’t know. He might be a little “anti-scientist.” He might be a little bit like a guy who says, “Fake news,” which is unsettling to me. I think it’s interesting to think about the show in this political climate.
In terms of how a character has evolved over the years, it’s an interesting question for an actor to approach. I did it slightly with “Twin Peaks.”
If you could give any advice to Mulder from the first season of “The X-Files,” what would it be?
“Wear comfortable shoes. It’s hard to run in dress shoes.” Maybe Mulder has changed. There’s a certain kind of fearlessness to the guy. We have more than 200 episodes that we’ve done, and he’s solved zero cases, so he’s the worst FBI agent of all time. If he was on “Law & Order,” there’d be no order.
I feel like his resilience is great. I feel like he can believe what he believes, even though he’s never gotten the truth. It’s kind of phenomenal, when you think about it.
