SYNOPSIS

Sonia is a neurotic jingle writer who’s always dreamt of a big and exciting life. Surprised by a sudden proposal and subsequent ultimatum from her easy-going boyfriend, Chris, Sonia has to decide whether she’ll join the ranks of her married friends or take a leap and pursue her fantasies. A whimsical romantic comedy that’s raunchy and yet gentle, IT HAD TO BE YOU explores the choices women face today while satirizing cultural expectations of gender and romance.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

IT HAD TO BE YOU is a very personal film. When my husband proposed (or tried to), rather than seeing hearts and hearing violins, I was filled with a panic and terror reserved for climactic horror movie scenes. I yelled, waved my arms in the air like a lunatic attempting to indicate that he should stop, and pretty soon was unable to see or hear as adrenaline took over my body. And keep in mind - this was a man I loved very

much.

I must admit, this was not the first time in my life that my reaction to or an experience of an event greatly lashed with cultural expectations or norms. It was often anxiety-provoking and confusing, but thankfully it was also usually very funny. At least in retrospect.

As I got a little older I encountered a lot of women - friends and colleagues of all ages - who described a similar dissonance between expectation and reality. My proposal debacle was the pinnacle of that dissonance for me and so I decided to make a film about it. And as I started working on this film, I had countless women confess to me that when their husbands popped the question, the feelings and thoughts that they experienced were also quite complicated and far from the pure bliss that was expected of them. It was both great fun and a relief to learn that I wasn’t alone in my fears and I loved hearing the stories of others’ bumpy journeys to “I do”.

And lastly, I wanted to make this movie because I’m a rom com junkie and I wasn’t seeing the kind of movies that I wanted to see anymore in the theaters. I wanted to see a movie that had a flawed, funny, searching protagonist that was a woman and not a man. I wanted to see a movie that echoed the older romantic comedies (”Annie Hall”, “When Harry Met Sally”) and was truly character and not set-piece driven, but that was dressed with the modern trappings of today’s frank/carnal humor. I wanted to portray a relationship in all its flawed everyday beauty and I wanted to do so through my particular female lens. More than anything, I wanted to create a film that was current in its humor, but timeless in its heart.