Newness isn't your average dating app movie. The new film, from the director behind the heart wrenching classics Like Crazy and Equals, may start with the stereotypical swiping many of us are all-too-familiar with, but the story is about so much more than an app. Nicholas Hoult and Laia Costa play Gabi and Martin, two millennials who meet on a dating app purely to hook up, but end up falling deeply in love. However, that's just the beginning of their story.
"When [writer Ben York Jones and I] were tinkering with the idea, we really wanted to make a movie that felt very modern," director Drake Doremus told Refinery29. "We really wanted to examine the idea that when there are new people at your disposal at all times...it’s a completely different mindset to go into the world with."
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While the clip above features the two protagonists falling into monogamous love, deleting the app, and moving in together, much of the film centers in the tension that arises when they decide to explore an open relationship in an effort to accommodate their desires to see other people.
"The questions is, is this viable solution?" Doremus continued. "I didn’t want to make it about 'is this is good or this is bad,' I just wanted to make a film that honestly examined the consequences."
The sticky complications of intense relationships are Doremus' bread and butter. Like Crazy brutally explores the struggles that come with a long distance relationship, and Equals puts a dystopian twist on forbidden love.
"To be honest with you, it has a lot to do with my parents," he said of his proclivity for this type of story. Their relationship was passionate but short-lived, causing them to divorce when Doremus was two years old. "In my mind, this idea, that’s what love is."
Because of this, these films are just as much stories for us as they are for him.
"Subconsciously I’m continuing to try and examine and piece together their relationship," he explained. "That fear and sadness is so permeating in my work. Rather than run away, it's something I'm trying to examine. "
Newness will be available exclusively on iTunes starting November 3, before moving to Netflix in 2018.