Which Brings Me to You exceeds expectations

February 28, 2025

Rating: 3/5

Have you ever wanted to listen to two people talking about how they ran up their notch count*? Yeah? Then the 2023 movie Which Brings Me To You is for you, but also - unexpectedly - for you even if that thought doesn't seem all that appealing to you.

Jane (played by Lucy Hale) and Will (Nat Wolff) meet at a wedding where she dares him into a romp in the reception coat room. The hookup goes awry when he suddenly has second thought, prompting her to storm out scorned and angry.

Lucy Hale and Nat Wolff in Which Brings Me to You

He catches up to her and manages to talk her into talking to him by telling her about an embarrassing dalliance he had in his youth. Jane finds the story amusing and after some bartering over pie they start trading stories about their amorous pasts. While this may sound like a vulgar version of Before Sunrise - the very talkative classic from 1995 - it is something much better than that.

Their respective tales - engagingly, breezily, and inevitably somewhat superficially shown - reveal two people who struggle forming lasting connections even though they badly want them.

Hale does an excellent Jane. She gets to do a broader and more interesting range than she did in The Hating Game. Wolff - whom I've never seen or heard before coming across Which Brings Me to You - matches her energy and emotional ups and downs and hesitations and trepidations.

The way the movie is structured creates a bit of a mystery - similar to Definitely, Maybe - that slowly raises the stakes for the two leads.

Director Peter Hutchings (who also directed The Hating Game) does a very fine job staging scenes and mostly maintaining an enjoyable pace.

While the movie is mainly set in Sag Harbor in the Hamptons it was mostly filmed in New Jersey. Very scenic settings overall.

*The body count recounted in the movie is rather low compared that in Four Weddings and a Funeral, for example (33). Seven for Will and five for Jane. However, the implication is that Will's is materially higher. The movie is a bit fuzzier on Jane's.