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What If | 2014 | PG-13 | - 6.4.5
Frustrated by another failed love affair a man (Daniel Radcliffe) becomes cynical about relationships. Then he meets a woman (Zoe Kazan) at a party but she tells him that she has a boyfriend and so he must be satisfied to be her friend; things get complicated when he realizes that he wants to be more than friends. Also with Megan Park, Adam Driver, Mackenzie Davis, Rafe Spall, Lucius Hoyos, Jemima Rooper. Directed by Michael Dowse. [1:42]
SEX/NUDITY 6 - A man and a woman kiss passionately and caress each other while lying back on a sofa at a crowded party (they are both clothed). A man and a woman kiss passionately in a hospital storage room and the woman's boyfriend walks in on them. A woman straddling a man kisses him passionately and they each talk about loving each other so much that they want to be cutting each other open and eating their insides, etc. A man and a woman kiss passionately and she unfastens his pants; he pulls away and leaves. A man and a woman kiss and sex is implied (the scene ends). A woman tries to seduce a man while they are in a car; they kiss and she puts her finger in his mouth before he stops her and says that he can't do this (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). A man and a woman kiss in a few scenes. A man and a woman talk about the weirdest place they ever had sex and when one describes having had sex in a bakery we see baked good being knocked off shelves and we hear a woman moaning (no nudity is shown).
► A man and a woman go skinny dipping at night in the ocean and we see their bare backs, buttocks and a suggestion of the man's genitals through his legs; another man and another woman take off their clothes and go in the water (we see their bare backs, buttocks, legs and a suggestion of the man's genitals between his legs). After skinny dipping a man and a woman stand nude on the beach and agree to look at each other before realizing that their clothes have been stolen; we see them walking while holding branches with leaves to cover themselves (we see the woman's bare shoulders and legs and the man's bare chest, abdomen and legs). A woman who appears to be intoxicated flops into her bed and calls her boyfriend on the telephone; she unzips her dress and describes what she is wearing underneath (we see the side of her bra and panties and a bit of bare flesh at the abdomen and hip as well as her bare thighs). Men and women dance at a wedding celebration and one man's shirt is partially open revealing his bare chest and upper abdomen. Men and woman dance in a club scene. A woman tries on a dress at a store and is unable to get it off; a man helps her and as he lifts the dress we see her wearing a bra and panties that reveal her bare back and abdomen, bare legs and cleavage; the man pauses for a moment when the woman's mouth is exposed and seems to contemplate kissing her but he does not. A woman wears a low-cut dress that reveals cleavage. A man's bare back to the hip is shown when his shirt pulls up and his pants sag. Two women are shown wearing bikinis on a beach and we see cleavage, bare abdomens and bare legs. A woman with a towel wrapped around her (we see her bare shoulders and legs from the knee down) answers the door and invites a man in.
► A woman hugs a man and kisses him on the cheek when they meet. A man and a woman sleep in the same sleeping bag together (no sex is implied).
► A man and a woman talk about how many relationships they each had and we see pictures of the people with X marks over their faces. A man asks another man if he is trying to sleep with his girlfriend and the second man denies that he is. A man makes reference to another man having had a sexual encounter with a man who "Did look like a woman." A man and a woman talk about being old and the last time they would have sex being what kills them. A man and a woman walk home after a party and the woman tells that man that she has a boyfriend but that she would like to hang out sometime and gives him her phone number. A woman talks about having to sleep with all of her ex-boyfriend's friends to get back at him after their break up. A man buying a lamp for his home asks if it would make the man he is shopping with more sexually experimental if the lamp was hanging in his bedroom. A man talks about just having had sex with a woman. A woman makes reference to hearing a man and a woman's "love-making through the walls." A man talks about not having performed a sex act in a woman's kitchen. A man talks about having accidentally seen a part of his female cousin's genitals. A man jokes about having left a match box in the bathroom where he'd like every woman at a party to leave one pubic hair. A man sits on a rooftop and listens to a voicemail message from a woman saying that she doesn't want to break up and that they can work things out; he then deletes the message. A man argues that love makes you a worse person because it makes you lie and cheat and hurt people. A man talks about his mother and father and their many adulterous affairs. A man teases another man about having a broken heart.
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VIOLENCE/GORE 4 - We see a movie on a TV set that shows a man's very bloody abdomen as another man reaches inside it and his arm is bitten off by large teeth inside the man's stomach; we see blood spray and the stumps of the man's arms and then a man's face on the end of what looks like intestine.
► A man punches another man in the face and he falls down a flight of stairs (we see him with a black eye later). A man chopping jalapenos screams when he rubs his eye; he yells and complains that his eyes are burning and when another man opens the bathroom door, he inadvertently knocks the first man out of the window; we see the man lying on the ground below and then in an ambulance (he makes a full recovery). A woman kisses a man passionately while they are in a car and when he stops her she pushes him out of the car and onto the sidewalk (he is not injured). A man and a seem intoxicated and walk up a flight of stairs; when they reach the top and are startled by another woman, the first woman falls backward down the stairs (there is no evidence of an injury but we see her holding an ice pack on her head). A woman with a mouth full of food yells at a man and she chokes; the man performs the Heimlich maneuver and she spits a chunk of food out.
► A woman talks about her mother dying from breast cancer. A man sits on a rooftop and listens to a voicemail message from a woman saying that she doesn't want to break up and that they can work things out; he then deletes the message. A man argues that love makes you a worse person because it makes you lie and cheat and hurt people. A man talks about his mother and father and their many adulterous affairs. A man teases another man about having a broken heart. A woman jokes about another woman joking about her eating disorder. A woman tells a man that pickling is actually embalming. A man talks about not "bathing in orphan blood." A woman straddling a man kisses him passionately and they each talk about loving each other so much that they want to cutting each other open and eating their insides, etc. A woman describes an imaginary encounter with a man where he broke her fingers and the police came and the man shot them all. A man talks about his arm smelling rancid after having a cast removed. A man and a woman talk about the amount of feces in a man's intestines when he died and then continue to talk about other scatological topics while the woman finishes her meal. A reference is made to eating one's own feces. A man and a woman talk about doctors treating people like slabs of meat and the man talks about practicing on homeless people.
► A woman opens a bottle using her teeth. We hear the sound of a child in diapers having a bowel movement. A woman squirms and runs out of the ocean when she says that something touched her foot.
LANGUAGE 5 - About 1 F-word, 24 sexual references, 36 scatological terms, 15 anatomical terms, 3 mild obscenities, name-calling (rat face, stupid, anemic albino, crazy romantic cheese ball, loser, hot pants, liar, rancid freak arm, prostitute, sex creep, sleazy, conniving, pathetic, hideous offspring, stupid fat jerk, stupid ugly jerk, snooty, anti-Christ), 12 religious exclamations (e.g. Oh My God, God, Jesus).
SUBSTANCE USE - A man is injected with a pain medication through an IV while riding in an ambulance. People are shown drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes at a party, a man and a woman are shown drinking shots of alcohol at a club and we see them dancing and drinking throughout an evening, two women drink glasses of wine in an apartment before a dinner party, a woman brings three cups of beer to her two companions while at a children's wrestling tournament, a man and a woman drink cups of alcohol, a man and a woman seem intoxicated and walk up a flight of stairs (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details), a woman tells a man that she's been "thinking about drinking heavily" and he offers to drink with her, people are shown drinking alcohol in a bar scene, we see glasses of poured wine on a table, and a man drinks beer from cans while sitting on a park bench and we see empty cans next to him. A woman lights 4 cigarettes simultaneously.
DISCUSSION TOPICS - Friendship, relationships, friendship between men and women, love, infidelity, ex-lovers, sexism, gay marriage, incest, honesty, death of a parent, breast cancer, life choices, loneliness.
MESSAGE - Love and relationships are complicated.
CAVEATS
Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.
We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.
Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.
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We are a totally independent website with no connections to political, religious or other groups & we neither solicit nor choose advertisers. You can help us keep our independence with a donation.
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