Modern Love is a Prime Video anthology series inspired by The New York Times column of the same name. The first season featured star turns from the likes of Anne Hathaway, Tina Fey, and Dev Patel. In Season 2, showrunner John Carney gets to infuse a bit more of his native Irish sensibility into the series. At least, in the third episode, "Strangers on a Train." The 35 minute love story is based on a short column written during the height of the pandemic about a meet cute undone by the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown.
Carney reinvents the story using film references, musical interludes, and Ireland as a setting. It is, as fans of Once and Sing Street, will note, the first time John Carney has gone full "John Carney" in the anthology. The Game of Thrones star is adorable and electric, making a strong case for a rom-com franchise of his own in the sixth episode of the season, Train. Lucy Boynton, too, makes it instantly believable why someone would fall hopelessly in love with her over a short train ride. It's the meet cute of most romantic kind as a techie and a medievalist bump into each other.
There are impromptu songs, some stoner comedy, a lot of witty dialogue and what's best is that it's all set in the earliest days of the coronavirus pandemic. The two, on their way back home on the cusp of a lockdown, decide to meet at the railway station two weeks later, giving each other not their phone numbers, but a chance at an old-school romance. However, the pandemic obviously had a longer stay in mind when it came visiting, without much concern for any cute love stories it may have destroyed.
John Carney's anthology series returns for a sophomore season of love stories based on the eponymous New York Times column. Unlike the rousing highs of the first season's opening episode, 'When the Doorman Is Your Main Man' (the Guzmin episode, which remains one of the show's best), Season 2 starts off on a more somber note. In 'The Night Girl Finds a Day Boy,' a woman with delayed sleep phase syndrome falls in love. He lives his life in the day, and she can only function at night.
While it is hardly a series highlight, I enjoyed the specificity of their equation, and what it says about the sacrifices we make for those we hold dear. Although this series of Modern Love is more diverse and adventurous than the first run, which was justly criticised for spending too long in a comfortable, stylised New York, the metropolitan whimsy hasn't entirely gone away. It is present in The Night Girl, a tale of two fusspots trying to overcome the fact that one of them prefers to sleep all day and roam the city at night. The underlying metaphor, about letting a potential partner into our peculiar bubble, doesn't compensate for a story that is largely about a couple failing to organise brunch.
Like the first season, we kick things off with a bang with probably the best of the current batch of episodes. Minnie Driver stars as a happily remarried woman whose only connection to her dead husband is an old sports car that keeps on breaking down on her and may, finally, need to be put out to pasture. Unsurprisingly, this one was written and directed by John Carney. Modern Love explores "love in its multitude of forms – including sexual, romantic, familial, platonic, and self love," which are presented in eight half-hour episodes.
The Amazon series, based on the New York Times column of the same name, adapts different love stories taking place in New York City. Acclaimed anthology series Modern love We'll be back on Amazon Prime Video on Friday, August 13th, with a new star-studded cast. Kit harington Wow Lucy Boynton While on a cross-country train in Ireland, and Garrett Hedlund And Anna Paquin Spark romance on the screen.
In the meantime, Minnie driver Offering a heartbreaking performance as a woman who has lost the love of her life. They set up a meeting at that train station, 15 days from the day they arrive in Dublin. No address, no phone number, no full names; heck, not even a first name except 'Paula'. For people who believe in fate and all that jazz, this is just the perfect story. She is the love of his life, he tells his sceptic of a brother.
You should go to the station , her mother tells her. They set off on bicycles, sweet-talking cops, dodging barricades and breaking lockdown. And somewhere above them, Love lets out another of 'em smirks. The timing of Modern Love S2 couldn't have been more apt because now, more than ever, we need to believe in the validation of love and all its wonderfully quirky facets.
Interestingly, the COVID-19 pandemic was used as the backdrop to what I consider to have been the best episode of season 2. Simply titled Strangers on a Train, the episode features Kit Harington and Lucy Boynton, who indulge in a Before Sunrise-style meet-cute. He's an advertising techie while she's a medievalist, who strike up a worthy conversation and are swiftly left besotted by the other. Instead of exchanging numbers, they take the old school romance route and promise to meet up at the same train station two weeks from their first encounter.
They haven't spoken for a while though, as they don't live in the same country, and as of August 13—the day Modern Love Season 2 lands on Amazon Prime—Cecilia has yet to tell him their little love story is going to be in a TV show. MOLV 108This episode alternates between the past, a love story between Margot and Kenji , and the present, during Kenji's funeral. Margot and Kenji are an older couple who connect over their love of running. The two decided to take their love slowly because of Kenji's difficulty in recovering from the death of his wife, who had died six years prior. Their relationship began to progress quickly after Kenji suggested they sleep together after a marathon they ran together.
After the funeral, Margot decides to go for another run and passes by young couples in love, including characters from previous episodes. Margot compares herself to these young couples, considering her own age and experience with relationships. Amazon Prime's anthology comedy series, created by John Carney ("Sing Street") and based on the New York Times column, features Anna Paquin, Minnie Driver and Garrett Hedlund in its second season .
The third episode follows two attractive strangers named Michael and Paula , who strike up a conversation on a train in Ireland, which is preparing for a two-week lockdown at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Being hopeless romantics, they forego exchanging phone numbers and simply decide to meet again at the same train station two weeks later, once the shutdown is "over." Inspired by the famous New York Times column of the same name, the first season of Amazon's romantic comedy anthology show explored "love in its multitude of forms – including sexual, romantic, familial, platonic, and self-love". The question now is, will Modern Love make you fall in love with Season 2? You will like it in parts, depending on what your story is. You might find resonance in the strangers on the train who read Jon Ronson's So You've Been Publicly Shamed instead of spending their time glued to a screen; or you might see yourself in the estranged spouses at the therapist's.
What the series does do though is reassure you, even if you're dealing with a particularly abrupt cold turkey of a relationship and have almost sworn off love, that there's still love out there. When viewers first meet the "night girl," she is curt and aloof as the "day boy" makes small talk with her in a diner. In the end, she agrees to go out with him, but her narration tells the audience that "the moon was her sun" -- she goes to bed at 8 am and wakes up at 5 pm. The day boy is initially excited by her situation and his late nights are manageable at first, but as their dating life develops, it becomes more and more difficult. Rather than exchanging numbers, the two agree to the much more romantic option of meeting again on the same train two weeks later.
But when the lockdown proves to be a lot longer and more intense than either could have predicted, a romantic gesture becomes something much more challenging. Zoe and Jordan aren't my favourite couple this season (they're both a bit hard to like at times), but this is easily one of the most memorable episodes of Modern Love to date. The second season of an anthology of eight short films, each telling the story of romantic love in the modern world, based on the true stories told in a famous New York Times column called "Modern Love". The first episode of Modern Love Season 2 titled The Night Girl Finds a Day Boy features Gbenga Akinnagbe and Zoë Chao playing a couple whose relationship is tested as the latter's character battles with delayed sleep phase syndrome. Though not as memorable as Anne's episode in season 1, Gbenga and Zoë authentically showcase, with their heartfelt performances, how love can triumph anything but that it also requires tremendous work and sacrifice from both sides.
Concluding, the final episode titled Second Embrace, With Hearts and Eyes Open centers on Tobias Menzies and Sophie Okonedo, playing a divorced couple with two adorable daughters who find their way back to each other. With an illness added to the mix, we see a man's undevoted attention to his ex-wife, in spite of the obvious distance, and how time can heal the wounds that first separated them with growing up and maturity playing the key factor. Giving love another chance is shown beautifully by Tobias and Sophie. Based on the popular New York Times column of the same name, Amazon Prime's anthology series Modern Love is a delight. The episodes, which run around 30 minutes each, are like mini-movies instantly dropping viewers into a story they know nothing about and pulling them in with beautiful, poignant tales about love, life, and loss. Little by little, his life began to stabilize and again his career is heading towards new projects.
But it was' In the Waiting Room of Estranged Spouses' that I was most taken by this season. A man bumps into the ex-wife's of the man his wife left him for. The two, whose spouses left them for each other, form their own unlikely bond. It is a wildly entertaining one-liner, and everything about its opening few minutes screams bland, predictable rom-com.
And yet, director John Crowley and writer Susan Soon He Stanton's episode goes far beyond its promising premise. This is a very bad episode that is made all the worse by following the season's incredibly strong opening salvo. Both have lived full lives and Kenji is still grieving the loss of his wife six years earlier. We get flashes of their charming courtship as Margot remembers him on the way to Kenji's funeral. The episode serves as a wonderful and exquisite ode to the love you may find in your later years.
"Young love even for old people can be surprisingly bountiful," Margot says. The episode's final moments revisit all the characters from the first season and serve as a wonderful coda. Now Harington has hung up his bulky black fur coat for a lighter role in the new season of "Modern Love," based on The New York Times column about real-life love stories. Each episode tells a different story with different actors. All Modern Love episodes are based on true stories, written by people who lived through these cases and published their stories in The New York Times. So the case for the third episode of season two did have an ending.
Two years later, Modern Love returns with eight new, more relatable stories inspired by the popular The New York Times column, about love in New York City. Based on the New York Times column and podcast of the same name, Modern Love has been created by John Carney. The show features stand-alone stories and explores love in its multitude of forms – including sexual, romantic, familial, platonic, and self-love. The new season of the anthology series Modern Love inspired by The New York Times column of the same name, consists of eight half-hour episodes, all which will be released together on the same day. Instead, it is the far more sensitive, sensual, and personal second episode that is among the standouts of this new season. ' is written and directed by actor Andrew Rannells, based on a column he wrote himself.
Two young men see each other on opposite sides of the road. As they gradually come closer, they are reminded of their first and only date, as flashbacks recount the evening they shared. Despite its gimmick, of edging towards each other ever so slowly, wearing thin after a point, it is a beautiful format — the idea of two people passing each other and their entire history coming to light in those few precious moments.
According to Amazon Studios head, Jennifer Salke, Modern Love explores 'love in its multitude of forms – including sexual, romantic, familial, platonic, and self love'. The beauty of Modern Love, based on the long-running weekly column in The New York Times, as creator John Carney said in an interview with this writer, is you could dip into it at any time, in any order. Also, there is no rule saying you have to like all the episodes. At just over half an hour it does not call for a great investment of time and for that small parcel of your day, delivers rather sweet love stories.
In Season 2, On A Serpentine Road, With The Top Down is one of the better ones. What relationship can a physicist have with her 30-year-old Alfa Romeo? Except, that it is a vintage car that breaks down more often than it runs smoothly? But to her, the car is a talisman that she has been holding on to ever since her first husband died. And on that serpentine road, when she takes the car out on a windy day, she gets to talk to him.
Essentially, the episode is a beautiful lesson in that, much like the column was. The acting is top-notch, with Minnie Driver leading the charge. Director John Carney seamlessly bridges the gap between words and the screen. The series' weakest episode takes place across the longest period of time and perhaps tries to do too much in its short runtime. The story starts when the protagonist Lil is 12-years-old and student president Vincent sticks up for her in the cafeteria. This meeting begins a lasting friendship that follows into adulthood.
Ultimately the characters aren't particularly likable -- in addition to leading her on with romantic dances and picnics overlooking the Manhattan skyline, Vincent seduces her during their college days and then ghosts her afterward. This season of Modern Love takes viewers outside of New York a handful of times to locations including Dublin and London. The overall vibe is reminiscent of the first season -- witty, charming, and packed with love. But the stories are arguably even less conventional and at times feel incomplete.
Some episodes are outstanding and emotionally involving, while others feel disjointed and flat. Why Modern Love is interesting, it's dealing with romance in the modern world. And these two, actually, it's a kind of antithesis of the 'modern love' term.
They've gone, "No, we don't want to do modern love in the modern ways - we want to do it the old way". It certainly didn't hurt that the terrifically talented John Carney oversaw it – the man responsible for truly excellent romantic comedy-dramas like Once, Begin Again and Sing Street. It never came close to the greatness of those films, but it clearly came from the same creative mind. The Minnie Driver-centric episode titled On a Serpentine Road, With the Top Down is the opening episode of the season, which is a tricky decision, as it's the type that won't please everyone. Selling a car, that has been through thick and thin with you and a lost love, will never be easy and Minnie's earnest performance is heartening to witness.
Equally entertaining, if not more, is the nostalgic-driven episode titled How Do You Remember Me? Marquis Rodriguez and Zane Pais encounter each other on the street and as they walk towards each other, flashbacks of their dreamy turned dreadful date come blazing through. What made this episode more introspective is how the same date was shown from the POVs' of both parties, not just one individual in question.
Hence, we get two very different scenarios of the same incident. Marquis and Zane give a performance as delightfully emotional as their undeniable chemistry. Jordan seems like the perfect guy, but they have to work out a meeting point between night and day, her moonlight and his sunshine. The sweet chemistry between the actors and the crisp storytelling ensures that this modern love story finds the age-old ending it deserves.
Instead of exchanging numbers or social media profiles, the pair decide to go old school, arranging to meet again on the same train in two weeks time. But when the pandemic makes this impossible, they're left trying to work out how to find each other again. That's exactly the conundrum facing Kit Harington in season 2 of Amazon's Modern Love, with Lucy Boynton playing the aforementioned dream girl.
