Film / When We First Met

All he needs is a second chance to be her first choice.

"Relationships are all about energy, and attraction, and... intangible things."

— Carrie, summing up the movie.

When We First Met is an American romantic comedy, staring Adam Devine, Alexandra Daddario, Shelley Hennig, and Robbie Amell. It is written by John Whittington and Devine, and directed by Ari Sandel.

Noah Ashby (Adam Devine) spends the perfect first night with the girl of his dreams Avery Martin (Alexandra Daddario) at a Halloween party in 2014, but somehow, Avery ends up happily engaged, 3 years later — to someone else. After discovering a way to alter the past, Noah, via different costumes, personas and backstories, makes play after play for Avery — sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing, but always, inexplicably ending up in the exact same place he started: 2017 — without her. Until finally something changes — in Noah.

When We First Met is an inventive new look at the age old question of who is truly "meant to be," as Noah gets closer and closer to a life he may not actually be right for.

It was released on Netflix February 9, 2018.

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Tropes:

• Action Girl: Carrie isn't afraid to use a plant to bash up Noah with, as demonstrated twice.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Adam Devine being in love with the girl that Robbie Amell's dating seems a bit familiar...
    • Also, the second time his character has gotten fat after getting engaged.
  • Robbie Amell's again featured in a time-travelling movie on Netflix.
  • This is the 6th movie that Adam has sung in.
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: After consuming a lot of alcohol, Noah accidently puts his phone in the punch, and steals a plate.
• Almost Kiss: an early scene has Noah leaning in towards Avery for a kiss, but Avery goes in for a hug.
• An Aesop: Destiny and fate is right in front of us, you just have to open your eyes a little bit more.
  • Everything happens for a reason.
  • There's absolutely nothing wrong with girl-and-boy friendships.
• Arc Words: "Relationships are about intangible things."
• Bait-and-Switch: Initially, you think that Noah will use time-travel to get with Avery, but Noah decides that she deserves to be happy, meaning that they can never be together. Once Noah travels back in time again to get Avery and Ethan, and himself and Carrie together, you'd think that would be the end. But it isn't.
• Bedmate Reveal: To Noah's, and the audience's, surprise, he wakes up in one timeline in bed with Avery.
• Betty and Veronica Switch: Noah begins to see Carrie as the girl he loves.
• The Big Damn Kiss: Near the climax, Noah kisses Carrie, but Carrie is perplexed.
• Big Eater: The reason that Noah is fat in one universe is that his job is so stressful, so he eats.
• Big Fancy House: In one timeline.
• Birds of a Feather: Noah and Carrie have a lot of similarities. One is their unique Halloween costumes.
• Book Ends: The movie starts and ends at the same event: Ethan and Avery's engagement party.
• Butterfly of Doom: The repercussions of the things that Noah does in the past are shown immediately, with varying results.
• Casting Gag: This is the second collaboration between Robbie Amell and director Ari Sandel, Adam Devine and Alex Daddario, Adam Devine and Robbie Amell and Robbie Amell and Andrew Bachelor.
• The Cast Show Off: Adam Devine gets to show off his amazing singing.
• Character Development: Noah initially starts off as a love-sick man, desperate to make Avery love him. In the end, he's now very content with his friendship with Avery, and begins to develop an appreciation of life.
• Chekhov's Gun: Blueberry Red Bull.
• Closer to Earth: Carrie is the most sane of the characters, and offers the most advice.
• Comical Overreacting: Noah's reaction to travelling back to 2014 is insanely hilarious, especially his interaction with the cashier.
• Crash-Into Hello: Noah bumps into Avery at a Halloween party.
• Deadpan Snarker: Carrie, Max, occasionally Noah and Avery.
• Deconstruction: Deconstructs a lot of the tropes of romantic comedies, particularly using time travel to manipulate someone into falling in love with you.
• Did Not Get the Girl: The whole reason for Noah wanting to travel back in time is that he doesn't get together with Avery.
• Didn't Think This Through: Noah doesn't think of the consequences his actions will have on his friends. Or occasionally on himself.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: Noah tries to convince Avery and Carrie he's not a stalker. It doesn't end well.
• Dogged Nice Guy: After being friendzoned, Noah gets the chance to rewrite his ending with Avery, over and over again.
• Double Meaning: When We First Met initially describes the event when Noah and Avery met for the first time, but Avery almost immediately reveals she used to describe how she and Ethan met. Then, as the film progresses, it also describes when Noah met Carrie.
  • Noah says to Carrie that he's been travelling, not knowing that he meant he's been travelling through time.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Noah gets excessively drunk at Avery and Ethan's engagement party. Ethan does the same in the timeline when Noah and Avery get engaged.
• Enormous Engagement Ring: Serves to demonstrate how rich Noah is in one timeline.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Noah has blonde frosted tips in his hair, signifying his 'full asshole' transformation.
• Fanservice : Adam Devine in soaked clothes, all three men having a shirtless scene, and Alexandra Daddario and Shelley Hennig.
• Fate Drives Us Together: Using previous information he's learnt about her, Noah tries to convince Avery of this.
  • In all the timelines, Carrie is there for Noah, making him realise they are meant to be together.
  • Initiating contact with Carrie, the audience is suspected to think that this will work with Noah and Carrie.
  • The final lesson Noah has to learn is that he can't just skip Avery to meet Carrie. The whole reason he met Avery was so that he WOULD meet Carrie.
• Foreshadowing: In every timeline, the one person who seems to care eniough for Noah to activley help him when he is acting up or hurt is Carrie, despite them rarely being friends and her been typically annoyed at him most of the time.
• Girl of My Dreams: Noah envisions Avery as the perfect girl for him.
• Get Back to the Future: Subverted, in that Noah chooses to go back in time, with the next day, he wakes up 3 years later with the full consequences.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Noah is extremely threatened by Ethan and constantly tries to prove he's better than him.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: Noah keeps time-traveling over and over again in an attempt to create the perfect Meet Cute with Avery.
• Halloween Cosplay: Seeing as the events are set on Halloween, at a costume party, there will be a lot of these.
• Handsome Lech: Noah tries to emulate Max's Casanova ways, but Avery sees through it.
• Imagine Spot: Noah's rose-coloured perception of his date with Avery includes their slow-mo touching of each other's faces, and Avery's adorable laugh.
  • Noah imagines the meeting of Ethan and Avery, with Ethan being presented as a half-Pegasus-half-human hybrid, shirtless.
  • His reaction to being hugged is explosions and opera music playing out.
• It's All My Fault: Avery's unhappiness is solely due to Noah's actions in 2014, and he realises he has to fix it.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Noah eventually realises that Avery will never love him and arranges for her to meet Ethan.
• Just Friends: At first, Noah dislikes that he's considered this to Avery, but by the end, he deeply cherishes their friendship.
• Karaoke Box: Noah drunkenly plays "Shout" on the piano, persuading Avery to sing with him.
• Lingerie Scene: Avery greets Noah this way to indicate the timeline where they got together.
• Longing Look: Noah stares deeply at Avery while she's celebrating her engagement to another man.
• Love Cannot Overcome: No matter how much Noah loves Avery, she'll never reciprocate.
• Love Hurts:
  Noah: Don't fall in love. She's gonna rip your heart out!
• Love Potion: Sort of. Noah is so determined to get with Avery that he uses the time machine to woo Avery into thinking he's the perfect guy for her.
• Love Triangle: Between Noah, Ethan, and Avery. With Carrie, it turns into a Love Dodecahedron. Noah is in love with Avery, whilst Avery was once with Noah but is now in love with Ethan. Ethan is in love with Avery, and Carrie is in love with Noah.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Avery is this initially to Noah, but Noah realises he's in love with the idea of this.
• Meet Cute: Noah tries his meet-cute with Avery again and again in an effort to get it right. Even their initial meeting counts, where the Hulk pushes her into him.
• Mr. Fanservice: Noah dons a suit, amongst other costumes, to attract Avery.
• My God, What Have I Done?: The sadder the timelines end up, the more Noah realises how dire the consequences his actions have on his friends and their lives.
• Nice Guy: Noah is overall a friendly guy.
  • Ethan is this in spades, described as "Mormon nice."
  • Avery is also very sweet, and seems to be extremely tolerant whenever Noah's time-traveling makes him act strangely.
• Now or Never Kiss: Noah kisses Avery to make sure that they'll end up together.
• Photo-Booth Montage: Occurs when the characters are in the photobooth. Near the end of the film, a truly adorable one is presented with Avery, Ethan, Noah, and Carrie.
• Photo Montage: During the end-credits depicting Noah and Carrie's relationship.
• Precision F-Strike: Max delivers one to Noah after he becomes so focused on work, which he pretty much stole from Max, that their friendship dissolved.
• Red String of Fate: No matter how hard he tries and convinces himself that it's fate, Noah is never meant to be with Avery. She was meant to connect him to Carrie.
• Revealing Hug: During Avery’s hug, Noah’s face clearly conveys his feelings. Compounded in the ending, which illustrates his change of heart towards Avery.
• Right Man in the Wrong Place: The meet-cute with Carrie and Noah at the Halloween party doesn't work.
• Romantic False Lead: At first, it seems like Ethan is going to be this. Instead, it's actually Avery who is the false romantic lead for Noah. Everything he liked about Avery, it turns out she got from Carrie.
• Running Gag:
  • Noah getting hit by a plant by Carrie
  • At Avery's engagement party, a guy that loves her gets excessively drunk and steals a plate. Initially, it's Noah, then it's Ethan.
• Self-Proclaimed Love Interest: Noah is this to Avery, he just doesn't realise it.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Noah's reason for going to the past is to win Avery's heart. In the end, he just does what he did the first time.
• Sexy Soaked Shirt: After Noah and Avery fall in the pool, their clothes stick to their skin, resulting in them kissing and sleeping together.
• Shipper on Deck: Eventually, Noah is this for Ethan and Avery.
• Shirtless Scene: It is a film with Robbie Amell, after all.
  • Noah wakes up shirtless in bed.
• Shout-Out:
  • Avery's costume is A League of Their Own, and Noah's Garth from Wayne's World.
  • Frozen is mentioned.
  • The song "Back in Time" is heard, which is from another time-travelling movie: Back to the Future.
  • The time-travelling photobooth is a reference to Big.
• Sigh of Love: After kissing Avery, Noah sighs loudly.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: When Noah and Avery are arguing in the pool, they start making out.
• Stalker Shrine: Noah kept the pictures he and Avery took 3 years ago.
  Noah: "You truly are a sad sack of shit."
• Stalker with a Crush: Noah accidentally comes off like this to Avery and Carrie after knowing too much information about them. It didn't help that he had met Carrie earlier that day, not realizing that he had time-traveled.
• That Was Not a Dream: Noah finds this out the painful way.
• The One That Got Away: Avery, for Noah. later, it’s Carrie.
• Time Machine: A photo-booth is the device that Noah uses to time-travel.
• Time Travel: The film's main plot is about how Noah is able to time travel to recreate a meeting with a girl.
• Time-Travel Romance: Played straight, then Subverted and Deconstructed.
• Wham Line:
  • "She said she wished things were different."
  • "Why doesn't Avery love me?"
• Wham Shot: Avery hugging Noah, after Noah wants to kiss her.
• What Did I Do Last Night?: When he wakes up, Noah has to figure out his life situation that resulted from his actions 3 years prior.
• What Have I Become?: Noah is forced to confront his life 3 years after making a choice.
• Will They or Won't They?: The film's main conflict is if Noah can be successful in winning Avery's heart.
• Woobie:
  • Noah suffers excessively throughout, including getting hit with trees twice. When he wakes up in 2017, he has to figure out his relationships with others, and his own personality changes, and he often gets yelled at for things he has no control over.
• You Never Did That for Me: There are several examples of Avery acting different with Noah than with Ethan.
  • She doesn't say "I love you, too" to Noah.
  • She doesn't kiss as passionately as she did with Ethan.

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