Charming, with an important takeaway

Rating: 8/10 (24 April 2020)

This movie has given me a lot of food for thought- but let me write out what I deplored in it first. For starters, it uses societal expectations and norms to constantly shame out the protagonist from a perfectly logical, alternate lifestyle. Why can't someone genuinely just like travelling and working without attachment?
Secondly, it does not leave much space for non-romantic relationships to exist and thrive in conception of what the storyline perceives to be the sole result of choosing to be without a partner-loneliness.
And yet, this movie is quite beautiful in it's charming portrayal of Clooney as a corporate guy. Midway through the movie, I was swooning over how relaxed and happy he is. By the end, I was appreciating how nuanced a character portrayal has to be to highlight how the things we think another person does not realise are great about them are actually what they have based their entire lives out.
I also liked the less conventional ending of the woman he connected with actually being married. A less conventional and sexist assumption would have been that she was waiting just for him.
"By the time someone is right for you, it won't feel like you're settling." I was rooting that this was the truth for the couple in this movie. But I got a more realistic lesson: connections are transient, life is not a rom-com, and you should not let society dictate the normal for you, or even get panicked and abandon it midway.