Review: Can You Keep a Secret? (2019)

While falling down the rabbit hole of YouTube one day, I came across this random chick flick trailer and had a very odd experience. I knew the story it was telling. I suddenly realised that I had read the book of the same name by Sophie Kinsella (best known for the Confessions of a Shopaholic books) about nine years ago, and had completely forgotten about it until halfway through watching that trailer. Naturally, I had to go further into this rediscovery and watch the whole film.

Can You Keep a Secret? follows Emma Corrigan, (played by Alexandra Daddario, probably best known as Annabeth Chase from the Percy Jackson films). During a flight home after a business trip, Emma becomes frightened as some turbulence occurs. As she begins to worry that she'll die, she starts confessing all of her secrets to the man sitting next to her. The plane lands safely, and Emma leaves the man, cringing, but reassured that he was a stranger she will never have to see again. Only it's not a stranger, but the owner of the company she works for. This man is Jack Harper, played by Tyler Hoechlin. As Emma and Jack get to know each other, they begin to get closer. There's just one problem though: Jack knows all of Emma's secrets, and Emma knows almost nothing about him.

My main thought after watching the trailer was: why has this been adapted now? Despite me reading Can You Keep a Secret? way back in what I estimate to be the year 2010, the book was published further back still, in 2003. So why has this early noughties chick-lit novel now become a 2019 film with references to millennials, the music of Imagine Dragons, and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic? If it wasn't timeless as a novel, I certainly don't hold any hope that this film will be.

While I don't remember the book particularly well, I will say that I remember finding Kinsella's book more enjoyable than I found this film. However, I was only about thirteen or fourteen when I read the book, so I can't fairly say if I would still hold this opinion if I reread the novel now.

Emma is kind of an awful character, and unfortunately I feel the blame goes towards both the script and Daddario's portrayal in fairly equal measure. She's written as a kooky character, and those are always a risk in this genre, as they tend to come off as immature, selfish and uncomfortably awkward, under the guise of being charmingly quirky. She constantly does big, dramatic gestures with her hands, and these gestures more than once relate to penis jokes. She and her ex boyfriend mime oral sex in a very over the top way in front of one of their colleagues, and it's just so embarrassing to watch. It's not funny.

She also speaks in an odd way during a few scenes that sounds sloppy, almost like she's drunk. This usually happens when she's very animated, like in the plane scene. I don't know why this is, I just know it doesn't work. Daddario just overacts in a few scenes.

Emma dresses younger than her age, and sleeps under a My Little Pony quilt (we're never told why), but apart from immature reactions to certain hurdles the film throws at her, she doesn't actually seem to have a childish nature. For example, if she'd rather stay in to sing along to Disney animated films than go out clubbing, something like that could be endearing. But Emma isn't endearing. She's whiny, and doesn't seem to understand other people's boundaries, which I think is supposed to be comical, but I found her unlikable.

She also appears to be incompetent at her job, which she's supposed to be at first, but then she's meant to get better. This might not matter as much in other films, but here we spend so much of the running time in her work place, because it's where she and Jack have a lot of their scenes together. Everyone at her work knows she isn't great at her job, but one day she does one good thing that her boss praises her for, which Emma responds to by firmly demanding that she gets a promotion. What? It's made worse when the boss (played by Laverne Cox, who has a couple of nice moments in this, but unfortunately like everyone else in the cast, doesn't shine) actually gives her the promotion. That's not how it works, not even in chick-flick land.

A key issue for me was Emma's secrets. The plot is centred around these secrets, and Emma's worry that they will be revealed, as they are the darkest parts of her. The fact is, none of them are really that bad. She admits had a sex dream about her female flatmate and that she doesn't like the coffee in her workplace. That's about as exciting as it gets. So, when these secrets are at risk of being heard by more than one pair of ears, it's hard to really feel anything for Emma. You just think she's being melodramatic. That doesn't create any great conflict, or a sympathetic main character.

Meanwhile, Jack Harper is too perfect, and I hate seeing onscreen romances where one person is wonderful, and the other is some annoying creature who (rightfully) doesn't believe they are worthy of the wonderful person's attention. Jack is a wealthy, kind, attractive, cool, intelligent, charming, sensitive, considerate, physically fit man who owns a thriving business, and Emma... adopted a dog instead of buying one, so I suppose she's a decent person? These two also don't really share any strong chemistry. It seems like they get along perfectly well, I just don't believe that they're madly in love with each other, which is what the film wants you to believe.

Kimiko Glenn (best known as Soso, from Orange is the New Black) is in this film as a side character, who has the ongoing joke of parading around in a slutty outfit before announcing she's going out to do something formal, like attend a baby shower or visit her grandmother. Like with Laverne Cox, Glenn is fine here, she's just not got anything really good to work with. Sunita Mani also had a weird subplot as Lissy, Emma's best friend and flatmate. She's a lawyer who wants to dance, but she's ashamed of this - a perfectly normal and healthy hobby- for some reason.

There were some really odd choices made in this film, notably visual elements. The film has an opening credit sequence that is animated, but no animation is brought back into the film, and although this segment follows an animated Emma, we don't learn anything about her that is relevant to the film.

There's also a scene where Jack has a TV interview, but for some reason they put a plain black background behind him and the interviewer. It looks very low budget. When have you ever seen a chat show or news programme that wasn't filmed in a colourful studio?

The plane scene was probably one of the most awkward in the film, as it's clear that no turbulence was happening, and that the cameramen were just shaking the camera, as the plane and the people seated in it look perfectly still. Nothing attempts to simulate movement, apart from a couple of bags that appear to be pushed out of the overhead carriers.

Also, every passenger in this plane is screaming their heads off at the turbulence, and it feels ridiculous, at least for the weak amount of shaky cam we're witnessing. It doesn't look like, nor is it ever implied, that these people should be worried about their plane crashing.

The script overall is just very weak. It's unfunny, and tries far too hard to be relevant, without wanting to connect to the people it's trying to be relevant to. The characters don't feel real, (Jack probably comes across as the most realistic personality, but lifestyle in accordance with that personality: sadly, not so much), and it just doesn't offer anything new to the genre. The premise of having someone tell a stranger all of their secrets when they believe they're about to die, only to deal with the consequences and that stranger later on when they survive, is actually a nice idea. The secrets, the two main characters, their dilemmas and the plot all have to be good though.

I've seen a lot a chick flicks. There have been more than a few that I found insulting for various reasons. The way the script views women, the romanticism of a toxic romance, the awful acting - these have all been features in the worst chick flicks. Can You Keep a Secret? isn't as bad as any of that. It just isn't very good.

THE SCOREBOARD

Chick Flick Check List Elements: 1, 5, 13, 15 (+2), 25, 27, 29, 36, 37, 42, 44, 47, 52, 54, 55 (+1), 57, 58, 62,

Total: 20

Is this really a chick flick or will men like it too? Chick flick

Would I recommend this film? No.

Quote of the film: "Now that you say it, it's weird. 'Penalise'... it's like 'penis'." - Emma

Film rating: 3/10