What Happens Later is classified as a romcom. Writer and director Meg Ryan calls it a romcom. Good grief, she even dedicated to the movie to Nora Ephron, her romcom mentor. Well, I have a bone to pick with Meg Ryan because this movie is not a romcom. It’s a love story. A magical, life changing love story.

What Happens Later tells a story of loss and growing up, a story of learning to live with life’s past regrets. It’s a story of moving on with love.

Willa (Meg Ryan) and Bill (David Duchovny) are both snowed in at an airport. They spot each other and exchange awkward greetings. Almost the first word out of Willa’s mouth is “magic” because they are meeting on a leap day some 20 years after they broke up.

There is so much magical realism in this movie. If you aren’t willing to accept the magic, you won’t like the movie. I personally loved it.

Willa and Bill spend the night talking through their past. They were together in college. Now all these years later they are forced to talk to each other about the truth of their past and their losses. They do it in fits and starts, both sometimes vulnerable, sometimes guarded.

As the night wears on the number of extras walking around the airport slowly vanish until they are alone – the only people in an empty airport. The Airport Voice (Hal Liggett) speaks only to them and all the airport signs are meant only for them.

It felt like they existed in a beautiful bubble together, a place to grow through their hurts and confirm their long ago love as a keystone experience in both their lives.

This is Meg Ryan’s second effort as a director. I reviewed her first, Ithaca. What Happens Later was the better of the two in my opinion. I’m delighted to watch Meg Ryan’s career as a director continue to blossom and hope she keeps them coming.

Don’t listen to the negative reviewers of this film. They didn’t like the magic or they were mad because Meg Ryan had the nerve to grow older – although nobody thought to complain about David Duchovny growing older. Let the magic and the wisdom of growing older do its work here and give the film a chance.

What Happens Later is streaming on Netflix and Tubi or can be rented from other streamers.