Film Review: First Date, Sundance Film Festival

Shelby Duclos and Tyson Brown in First Date

Tone is difficult to get right, and combining genres can make the task even harder. First Date, written, directed and produced by Manuel Crosby and Darren Knapp loses sight of its main character in attempting to mix coming-of-age / romantic comedy and suspense / crime thriller. This is a film that attempts to do too much and forgets why we would be invested in the story in the first place.

After a prologue involving a bloody phone call, we are introduced to Mike, played by the charismatic Tyson Brown. Mike has been pining for a girl, Kelsey (Shelby Duclos), to the point where it is driving his best friend, Brett (Josh Fesler) to intervene. If we stopped here, we could have had an amazing film, especially relating to the co-dependency that Brett and Mike share – Brett knows where Mike’s phone is, helps himself to Mike’s parents’ food and beers, and can recite Kelsey’s phone number for him. Kelsey has her own share of problems, including what appears to be neglect at home.

However, when Mike purchases a car (also orchestrated by Brett), the mere possession of the car brings trouble. The cars’ previous riders were less than savoury folks that have something going on involving both drug trafficking and a book club (comprised of members that cannot decide whether Of Mice and Men is a novella or a short story).

Perhaps, I was too invested in my desire for an indie coming-of-age drama to embrace the cliffside and warehouse shooting scenes. I think I simply appreciated the performances of the teens – Brown, Duclos, and Fesler – and was not enthused about having the film become one in which the teen characters essentially observe the bad guys fighting each other, without affecting much in the storyline. 

Even as I look at the cast list, many characters do not immediately strike me as memorable within the crime plot. Despite their book club, the villains are mostly interchangeable and disposable. It would have been interesting to have villains that were more philosophical, such as in The Guard (with Brendan Gleeson), or in the television show Mr. Inbetween. 

Another mark against the film, which may not be entirely its fault, is the social climate that it is being released in. In a culture that is coming to terms with the treatment of Black citizens, having a young person of colour be targeted and victimized by both police and villains alike is hard to find funny. There are ways to mine humour out of such situations, I’m sure – but why complicate things? If the film is not trying to be funny, then why start off funny in the first place?

I look forward to Brown, Duclos, and Fesler’s next projects, as they can carry films on their own, and I hope they get the chance to do so.

First Date will screen at Sundance Film Festival on February 2, 2021.