At Midnight – Film Review

Sophie Wilder is in Mexico City filming Super Society 3 and hopes to get her own spinoff. While shooting, she catches her boyfriend and co-star, Adam, cheating on her with a crew member. As Sophie struggles to figure out how she can move forward, she meets Alejandro, a junior manager at a hotel used for the production. A deep friendship develops between Sophie and Alejandro as they try to figure out how things can develop in their limited time together.

Who doesn’t enjoy a good, well-made rom-com? Sadly, that’s not what Jonah Feingold‘s At Midnight is. At times it seems like it desperately wishes to be a more modern retelling of Richard Linklater‘s Before trilogy while also being a millennial-centered comedy about two unexpected people, well, falling in love.

It’s honestly one of the most unoriginal films I’ve seen in a long time because quite literally every single plot point of this movie is not only extremely cliché, but the story beats are ones that you can see coming a mile away. Right from the painfully cringe-worthy opening scene that involves poor acting in a talk show set, you can see where these characters are going to end up.

I’m quite surprised that this movie got made because of how familiar it is. So many filmmakers out there in the world right now have these extraordinary, fresh ideas that will never get to see the light of day and yet here we are with At Midnight, which is just essentially one cliché after another.

The performances across the board are great, however. Diego Boneta is an absolute charm in the role of Alejandro and he was able to make me smile in almost every scene he’s in. He just has that “cool guy” attitude to him without seeming stuck-up or full of himself. He has that perfect combination of badass but easygoing.

He shares amazing chemistry with Monica Barbaro who portrays Sophie. Of course, Alejandro and Sophie end up falling in love with each other throughout the course of this movie and while it is outrageously familiar and trope-filled, their romance is still one that’s easy to get behind because they clearly have excellent chemistry and make each other happy.

This is a totally inoffensive movie that doesn’t do any harm, but it’s the type of movie where, after you’re done watching it, you’ll find yourself sitting there scratching your head, wondering why it even needed to exist in the first place. It’s the prime example of a movie that you’ll probably forget about within a few days, even if you are someone who ultimately ends up enjoying it in the moment. Here’s hoping that there’s a least a few good surprises in the rom-com genre this year.

At Midnight is a laughably predictable rom-com that constantly fails to be fresh and funny, despite featuring charismatic leads in Diego Boneta and Monica Barbaro.