{"id":26048,"date":"2024-09-21T00:12:27","date_gmt":"2024-09-21T04:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=26048"},"modified":"2024-09-21T00:12:27","modified_gmt":"2024-09-21T04:12:27","slug":"tiff-modern-day-old-school-antics-in-young-werther","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=26048","title":{"rendered":"TIFF: Modern-Day Old School Antics in \u2018Young Werther\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Can a popular book from the eighteenth century be adapted into a modern-day movie? That\u2019s the question that filmmaker Jos\u00e9 Avelino Gilles Corbett Louren\u00e7o explores in <em>Young Werther<\/em>, based on what the film introduces in its opening titles as the 1774 hit novel comparable to Beatlemania, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe\u2019s <em>The Sorrows of Young Werther<\/em>. It\u2019s a familiar story with charismatic characters whose translation to the present day generally works, if only for good fun.<\/p>\n<p>Werther (Douglas Booth) is not a particularly serious person. He puts a lot of effort into the way he dresses and the indulgences he enjoys, but has a habit of abandoning projects. He quickly ditches his more sensibly-minded friend Paul (Jaouhar Ben Ayed) when he meets and is immediately taken by Charlotte (Alison Pill). After a lovely night together, he\u2019s so in love that he disregards the bombshell that she\u2019s actually engaged. It turns out her fianc\u00e9 Albert (Patrick J. Adams) is a nice guy who admittedly works way too much, and Werther, undeterred, declares himself Charlotte\u2019s new best friend, ready to spend as much time with her as needed until she realizes that she feels the same way about him as he does about her.<\/p>\n<p>Early on, Paul tells Werther that he knows he\u2019s lying about where he is because he can hear his pants seam being measured. Werther is very much an anachronistic character, someone who still lives as if it\u2019s several hundred years ago, using a cell phone but preferring more archaic and sentimental forms of communication. While some of his behavior is adapted for the present day \u2013 he likes to call rather than text, or at least that\u2019s what audiences generally see as their primary form of communication \u2013 others stick out as having not been updated, which isn\u2019t necessarily a demerit for this light comedy but also don\u2019t completely work.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, Booth, who previously anchored the AMC+ series <em>That Dirty Black Bag<\/em>, has plenty of personality to carry this film. Werther is always ready for a speech about some passion of his, and has the ability to boost the confidence or energy level of those around him. He\u2019s also great at doing nothing, which steals the more serious Charlotte away from her fundraising work for less important things like getting gelato in the middle of the day. Pill, a standout of series like <em>In Treatment,<\/em> <em>The Newsroom<\/em>, and <em>Hello Tomorrow!<\/em>, plays Charlotte as someone open to a bit of softening up, ready to laugh but not always sure what she wants.<\/p>\n<p>The two leads make a great pair, and Adams provides suitable support as the eternally work-focused Albert, who wants to provide for the family he\u2019s creating but doesn\u2019t understand that spending time with your fianc\u00e9e is a crucial part of that. Paul\u2019s antics aren\u2019t quite as endearing, and he grounds the film in the present in a different way, wearing a mask with a small bottle of hand sanitizer clipped to his bag so that he can ward off the (unspoken but clearly COVID) germs he knows are likely present all over the hotel room and anywhere else they go.<\/p>\n<p>This is the feature debut for writer-director Louren\u00e7o, and it\u2019s an amusing if somewhat predictable ride. Though the costumes are not period, they\u2019re still fun, and the style that Werther has is evident, even if it too feels dated. Booth and Pill\u2019s shared scenes are the best reason to watch this film, which includes some cursing but otherwise feels like it should be appropriate for just about all ages. It\u2019s no longer the 1700s, but this story is apparently still relatable enough thanks to the efforts of those involved in this film.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Grade: B<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/author\/abe-friedtanzer\/\">Check out more of Abe Friedtanzer\u2019s articles<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Young Werther<\/em><\/strong> makes its world premiere in the <a href=\"https:\/\/tiff.net\/events\/young-werther\">Special Presentations<\/a> section at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Can a popular book from the eighteenth century be adapted into a modern-day movie? That\u2019s the question that filmmaker Jos\u00e9 Avelino Gilles Corbett Louren\u00e7o explores in Young Werther, based on what the film introduces in its opening titles as the 1774 hit novel comparable to Beatlemania, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe\u2019s The Sorrows of Young Werther&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":26049,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20471,19],"tags":[4210,10653,24209,24207,24210,24208,24206,3123,24087,2077,24205],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>TIFF: Modern-Day Old School Antics in \u2018Young Werther\u2019 | Cinema Daily US<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Douglas Booth stars as the title character in Young Werther, a cinematic adaptation of a classic 18th century work set in modern times.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=26048\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"TIFF: Modern-Day Old School Antics in \u2018Young Werther\u2019 | Cinema Daily US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Douglas Booth stars as the title character in Young Werther, a cinematic adaptation of a classic 18th century work set in modern times.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=26048\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Cinema Daily US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-09-21T04:12:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Young-Werther.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Abe Friedtanzer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@https:\/\/twitter.com\/movieswithabe\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Abe Friedtanzer\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=26048\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=26048\",\"name\":\"TIFF: Modern-Day Old School Antics in \u2018Young Werther\u2019 | Cinema Daily US\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=26048#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=26048#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Young-Werther.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-09-21T04:12:27+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-09-21T04:12:27+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/#\/schema\/person\/6d4d1be5055fa0a21c6be5ee2b54ae10\"},\"description\":\"Douglas Booth stars as the title character in Young Werther, a cinematic adaptation of a classic 18th century work set in modern times.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=26048#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=26048\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=26048#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Young-Werther.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Young-Werther.jpg\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":600,\"caption\":\"Courtesy of TIFF\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=26048#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"TIFF: Modern-Day Old School Antics in \u2018Young Werther\u2019\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/\",\"name\":\"Cinema Daily US\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/#\/schema\/person\/6d4d1be5055fa0a21c6be5ee2b54ae10\",\"name\":\"Abe Friedtanzer\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Abe-Friedtanzer-150x150.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Abe-Friedtanzer-150x150.png\",\"caption\":\"Abe Friedtanzer\"},\"description\":\"Abe Friedtanzer is a film and TV enthusiast who spent most of the past fifteen years in New York City. He has been the editor of MoviesWithAbe.com and TVwithAbe.com since 2007, and has been predicting the Oscars, Emmys, Golden Globes, and SAG Awards since he was allowed to stay up late enough to watch them. He has attended numerous film festivals including Sundance, Tribeca, and SXSW, and is a contributing writer for The Film Experience, Awards Radar, and AwardsWatch.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.cinemadailyus.com\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/movieswithabe\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/https:\/\/twitter.com\/movieswithabe\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?author=5\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"TIFF: Modern-Day Old School Antics in \u2018Young Werther\u2019 | Cinema Daily US","description":"Douglas Booth stars as the title character in Young Werther, a cinematic adaptation of a classic 18th century work set in modern times.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=26048","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"TIFF: Modern-Day Old School Antics in \u2018Young Werther\u2019 | Cinema Daily US","og_description":"Douglas Booth stars as the title character in Young Werther, a cinematic adaptation of a classic 18th century work set in modern times.","og_url":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=26048","og_site_name":"Cinema Daily US","article_published_time":"2024-09-21T04:12:27+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":600,"url":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Young-Werther.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Abe Friedtanzer","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@https:\/\/twitter.com\/movieswithabe","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Abe Friedtanzer","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=26048","url":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=26048","name":"TIFF: Modern-Day Old School Antics in \u2018Young Werther\u2019 | Cinema Daily US","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=26048#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=26048#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Young-Werther.jpg","datePublished":"2024-09-21T04:12:27+00:00","dateModified":"2024-09-21T04:12:27+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/#\/schema\/person\/6d4d1be5055fa0a21c6be5ee2b54ae10"},"description":"Douglas Booth stars as the title character in Young Werther, a cinematic adaptation of a classic 18th century work set in modern times.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=26048#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=26048"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=26048#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Young-Werther.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Young-Werther.jpg","width":1200,"height":600,"caption":"Courtesy of TIFF"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=26048#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"TIFF: Modern-Day Old School Antics in \u2018Young Werther\u2019"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/","name":"Cinema Daily US","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/#\/schema\/person\/6d4d1be5055fa0a21c6be5ee2b54ae10","name":"Abe Friedtanzer","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Abe-Friedtanzer-150x150.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Abe-Friedtanzer-150x150.png","caption":"Abe Friedtanzer"},"description":"Abe Friedtanzer is a film and TV enthusiast who spent most of the past fifteen years in New York City. He has been the editor of MoviesWithAbe.com and TVwithAbe.com since 2007, and has been predicting the Oscars, Emmys, Golden Globes, and SAG Awards since he was allowed to stay up late enough to watch them. He has attended numerous film festivals including Sundance, Tribeca, and SXSW, and is a contributing writer for The Film Experience, Awards Radar, and AwardsWatch.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.cinemadailyus.com","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/movieswithabe\/","https:\/\/twitter.com\/https:\/\/twitter.com\/movieswithabe"],"url":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?author=5"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26048"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}