Modern Love 2 review: To humanity, with hope

Imagine a new tide of modernity—coupled with humane undertones—taking over the ever-consuming Internet, the end product you are most likely to get is the textbook definition of The New York Times-meets-Amazon’s dangerously successful ‘Modern Love’ franchise.

After an uproarious entry into the digital space with its predecessor—Anne Hathaway has made us all cry, Dev Patel turned some into hopeless romantics—the second season of this part-book-part-column adaption had heightened the excitement (and expectations) for the digital populace so much so that it was the second most-anticipated phenomenon to have come out this year. First being Kit Harington’s clean-cut hairdo and Irish accent in it, of course.

Frankly, the route to ‘Modern Love 2’ is way more adventurous this time around. But, thankfully, certain intricacies stay intact. Say, for example, a strong commentary around the alarming topic of mental health and the need to normalize it. In episode six, ‘In the Waiting Room of Estranged Spouses’, a war veteran sees life as a battlefield and his spouse, a mission. Sure enough, both his family life and mental health take a major hit as he starts to conjure up ‘bad things’ in his mind. The track is aptly not so much about the love lane—although, heart wrenching—as it is about recognizing the problem in hand and addressing it. Garrett Hedlund internalizes the trauma-filled pride of a soldier, grappling with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in this John Crowley directorial. Similarly, another lesser known yet widely experienced disorder that no one seems to be talking about, Delayed Sleep-Phase Syndrome, takes the centre stage in Zoe Chao’s episode two, ‘The Night Girl Finds A Day Boy’, love attack by Jesse Peretz. “In love with a vampire,” is a recurring comment that comes up frequently when a charmer-types falls in love with a man who is on nature’s clock, and she isn’t. To pass a judgment on these grave issues would be criminal, hence, the hard pass.

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If the title is ‘Modern Love’, can the different interpretations of it—in the times of Canva and Corona—stay far behind? Absolutely not! Two consecutive episodes, EP three andfour, swing between the two extreme ends of love spectrum. One latches on to the ‘Before Sunset-y’ vibe, while the other is more along the lines on ‘Sex Education’: available on Amazon’s streaming rival, Netflix. Titled ‘Strangers On A (Dublin) Train’, two Irish poeple stumble upon one another on their way home for what is presumably a short, ‘stupid’ break. “The madness will be over soon (referring to the initial stages of lockdown,” says a suave Kit Harington, here seen as ad wiz Michael. The tomfoolery that we see in the face of adversity and unpredictability is almost cute. This third episode is the clichéd version of say-hello-to-medieval-romance and we have seen better, but, we will make do for two reasons: Kit Harington (there’s a ‘Game of Thrones’ joke in it, if you are looking) Irish-ness and the fact that we had all once tricked ourselves into believing that it will all be over soon. ‘A Life Plan For Two, Followed By One’ is, however, a different ballgame. There’s sex, jealousy, crass comedy and tongue waggling. The ‘Judas & The Black Messiah’ star, Dominique Fisher, is a comedian feeding off rapper jokes. Fun, feisty, she just wants to be loved by her knight in shining armor. Her first love fails, like most first loves do. This Marta Cunningham production is quasi-modern. The comedy troupe works, love and friendship? Not so much!

Episodes five and seven are deep dives into sexuality and identification of the ‘one’ who’s somewhere buried in layers of Instagram DMs and Tinder swipes. Andrew Rannells’ ‘How Do You Remember Me?’ has been plucked straight out of the media houses’ 2019-published book by the same name. Two people, one one-night stand, and tragedy befell. You see each other from across the road—years later—what are the odds of this happening in New York City? Still, it does. It’s the movies, duh! Marquis Rodriguez’s deep-set eyes, literally, moves the narrative forward. You know these secret lovers wouldn’t reunite or break into a long embrace after all that history, but you still want to wait it out, just in case. This one hits out of the park, at least for some. “Am I?... Maybe This Will Tell Me’ is about an outwardly confident-‘maybe’ bisexual kid whose go-to solution for real problems is the Holy Google. Tap, click, repeat. Celine Held & Logan George’s story starts out well; full of promise, and then reduces into a short film that couldn’t cram in all its crucial plot points. That teenage rush, of wanting to learn to live more before living, withers away as flawed storytelling takes over.

Trust ‘Modern love’ to treat you with a real sob fest, and it happens in the second installment, too—and this declaration comes from experience and sheer experience alone—with the modern-day Shakespearean-esque tragedies. The opening episode, ‘On a Serpentine Road, With the Top Down’, and the closing one pierce through your heart, as they were meant to. A disheveled Minnie Driver secretly pines for her dead first husband—she talks to him in his rundown car, and sniffs his sweater when no one’s watching—before, finally, bringing herself to sell his overbearing Stag. The agony of having loved and lost, and loved again, shines through Driver’s saggy skin and sad-looking eyes. This, and the finale episode, is inarguably the finest in ‘Modern Love 2’. Staying true to its essence, after all, ‘Modern Love’ is built on the foundation of faulty humans and troubled decisions, is ‘Second Embrace, With Hearts and Eyes Open’—the last one for this year. Sophie Okonedo’s amicably parted with her husband, while he is acing the ‘Best Daddy’ game, she seems to be ‘getting worse’. Despite the grin-able camaraderie, and a lot of hook-ups-between-exes, the climax leaves one with a sense of hopelessness—pretty much what we have been feeling all-year long, aren’t we?

The pulse of ‘Modern Love 2’ is a metaphor for amusement-park rides—this moment you are bawling over sappy love songs and romantic anecdotes, and the next is overridden by cringe. But, after a long-hard day, you need someone to sprinkle some hope & confidence all over you. And if ‘Modern Love 2’ does that, so be it. After all, as uptight Spence comes to relealise in episode six, “Life never goes as per plan.”