Come and Find Me is what Alias would be if it were told from Danny Hecht’s point of view except less realistic like a fantasy or a dream, not in a scoffing way. (Don’t be impressed. I had to Google his name.) Zack Whedon (yes, he is) directed this film about a graphic designer coping with the sudden disappearance of his girlfriend. Just when he is beginning to move on, he gets a peek into what happened to her and decides to find out regardless of the danger. It stars Aaron Paul and Annabelle Wallis.
Unlike the rest of the universe, I’m not familiar with Aaron Paul’s work because I haven’t seen Breaking Bad yet. Don’t worry. It is in my queue, but it isn’t my typical show. The Path is also in my queue, but I did that for Hugh Dancy from Hannibal, the TV series. I don’t remember Paul from his brief appearances in The X-Files, Judging Amy, Birds of Prey, ER and Veronica Mars. I saw Exodus: Gods and Kings so it is probably good that I don’t remember him in it. After watching Come and Find Me, I would cosign casting him as a lead in a movie.
I also liked Annabelle Wallis, which I did not realize was Tom Cruise’s love interest in The Mummy so I feel retroactively bad for any shade that I threw her way. I do not remember her from King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, X-Men: First Class or The Tudors. In Come and Find Me, I wanted to see more of her, and I actually think that the movie would have benefitted from her character being the main character rather than the supporting lead. When I saw the preview, I correctly guessed why her character disappeared so even though it is a mystery to the boyfriend, I was paying attention to how she played the scene. She basically had to act as if her character was undercover without being detected, which is the Russian nesting doll of acting if you’re not supposed to know it until the end of the film, and it is extremely difficult to do well and hold up on repeat viewings, but I think that she did a great job. I just wish that I had more of an opportunity to see her do her thing.
Come and Find Me’s problem is the story. Zack’s big brother, Joss, hit gold when he took a trope and reversed it by choosing the seemingly helpless girl and making her into the hero. I think that Zack tried to do the same thing in this movie, but forgot that Joss revealed that society’s views of the helpless, overlooked, cannon fodder girl was a false assumption, and she was actually powerful. The boyfriend in this film is operating according to society’s expectations of masculinity. The idea that a graphic designer can gradually level up against shady gangsters and double agents to survive long enough to fight alongside his girlfriend is a fun premise, but absurd. The movie only snaps into place at the end when he finally needs rescuing, and he takes the role usually reserved for the action hero’s girlfriend being held hostage by the bad guys, but Zack clearly isn’t like his brother and is not trying to turn society’s expectations on its head.
Come and Find Me belongs in a long line of film noir movies which usually has a detective as the main character and a femme fatale who puts men in danger, but actually needs to be rescued except in this movie, he is a graphic designer whom we never see work. The movie is a male fantasy, which is not inherently bad. I enjoyed The Oath, which is also a male fantasy that despite your daily experiences, you could butch up and face off with bad men to save those that you loved, which is the only way that I can explain why Zack would not at least give a profession to Paul’s character’s that has transferable skills such as a detective or even an office assistant who works at a repossession company. Zack is saying something about the inherent male identity as protector, but the message wasn’t convincing to me except that Paul’s character would often later use violence that he was the victim of in earlier scenes.
I did enjoy the narrative structure of Come and Find Me. It told parallel story lines between the past and the present. I bought the romance, especially the fact that Wallis is attractive so she could get away with a lot more problematic behavior than the average woman. Her character invites him over for a meal, but he ends up cooking. A subtle hint to her character’s true identity is that she is completely at a loss when it comes to doing normal things. There was a puzzling theme of modes of transportation denoting a character’s morality and relationship status. As a couple, they take a bus. As he realizes the truth about their relationship, he moves on to a bike, which can only be used by an individual, which symbolizes his aloneness. Any morally ambiguous uses a car, and when he finally enters one, you will see why I noticed based on whom the driver is. The majority of the movie is set in LA, and using the bus usually means a lack of financial resources, but he is traveling on a whim, and despite the fact that she worked at a dry cleaners (cleaners, get it), they can afford a pretty big place together so the movie is not making a statement about their socioeconomic status. They definitely are not getting their security deposit back. The black guy’s name is Buck. Jesus, fix it.
Come and Find Me would have benefitted from a shorter run time. At one hour and fifty-five minutes, it begins to lose focus by basically exploring foils, a tangent best left on the cutting room floor. We get it—he really loves her, but reminding us that she treats every man similarly detracts from their relationship without also distinguishing how she treated them differently and reciprocated his feelings in that specific moment. On a visceral level, American filmmakers are never as confident as their French counterparts in making films about love and loss without a bit of violence to jazz it up. Know who you are and stick to it or fully embrace the meditative aspect of your story and cut out the flash.
Garret Dillahunt is always a magnificent bastard. His mere appearance tells us everything that we need to know about that character. He may be typecast, but it is perfect typecasting. Come and Find Me acted wisely in tossing him a few coins.
Come and Find Me could have been a better movie if it had embraced its action side more and truly explored the gender norm flip instead of adhering to the male fantasy of inherent capacity to be effectively violent in the service of others. If you are a huge fan of the cast, give it a chance, but the meandering nature of the film makes the frustrated potential apparent in the denouement so much more aggravating.