What Happened Was...

What Happened Was nails contemporary isolation as few films do. It's filled with acute insights and observations of the wary yet hopeful circling that people do in conversation on a first date. It's a gem of a chamber play. [17 Sep 1994, p.37]

A jagged slice of life, What Happened Was ... converts an ordinarily clumsy date into an extraordinarily touching encounter, without the aid of melodrama and with no loss in credibility. For us no less than the star-crossed characters, it's a leap into a shallow end that turns perilously deep. [30 Sep 1994]

A small jewel about a most common experience-a first date. Writer-director Tom Noonan also stars as a quirky, shy guy who comes over to the Manhattan loft apartment of a co-worker (Karen Sillas) for a first date. Their dance of engagement is absolutely riveting and sad. Created as a stage play, it also works on film. A true sleeper. [09 Dec 1994, p.B]

A haunting, expressionistic portrait of two lonely souls who have reached out for companionship and instead found themselves on a proving ground, where they are mercilessly denuded of their protective lies and self-deception. Read full review

The movie is small, sincere, and riveting from start to finish. [06 Jan 1995, p.10]

As a piece of drama, What Happened Was . . . isn't any great shakes; it's essentially an actors' workshop exercise that exists primarily as a showcase for its cast. And because Noonan and, especially, Sillas are so good, it triumphs. [06 Oct 1994, p.F10]

The faces of Noonan and Sillas reflect everything they're feeling. This disquieting duet of high anxiety rests entirely on their shoulders, and they're superb. [12 Sep 1994, p.60]

A penetrating picture of big city loneliness. [14 Mar 1995, p.10]

What Happened Was … dissects the interminable hopefulness of dating. Noonan, who also wrote the script, has an ear for believable dialogue, and Sillas (Simple Men, Risk) allows every conceivable emotion to ripple across her face, which is a landscape unto itself. Read full review

For something billed as a lightweight romantic comedy, What Happened Was... wades through some surprisingly deep waters. Read full review

The movie (written and directed by Noonan), which took the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, is not as profound as the festival laurels imply. But when all is said and said, the fate of this relationship -- left hanging as the movie ends -- becomes a matter of compelling significance. Read full review

An examination of loneliness and the need to connect in an increasingly disconnected world, What Happened Was . . . is disturbing, funny and unpredictable in the way people themselves are disturbing, funny and unpredictable. [07 Oct 1994, p.05]

What Happened Was . . . isn't always easy to watch. Like a Beckett play, it doesn't spare its characters, but strips bare their insecurities, their fear of rejection, their essential isolation and foolishness. [07 Oct 1994, p.C3]

It not only feels like a transposed stage piece, it plays like a workshop performance that may not have found its final form. But the actors keep it lively and darkly funny, and the picture rarely feels stagey. [07 Oct 1994, p.D31]

An intense two-character drama that follows as the participants in an office flirtation attempt to go up a notch toward an actual relationship, with disastrously unforeseen consequences. [11 Nov 1994]

The film may have its troubled spots, but its poignant depiction of human tenderness more than compensates for them. [18 Nov 1994, p.17]

An emotionally daring, subtly written, richly acted and very clever little movie. [09 Dec 1994, p.H]

Off-Broadway actor Tom Noonan, best known for his offbeat, crazy and villainous roles on stage and screen, emerges as a talented writer and director in What Happened Was, an intriguing, often mysterious drama about a date between two lonely misfits. Read full review

After a slow start, these two characters absolutely absorbed me. The drama develops a strong (and not altogether pleasant) voyeuristic appeal and the performance of Karen Sillas (a regular of the Hal Hartley movies) gradually becomes one of the most devastating and original performances I've seen by an actress in a movie this year. [07 Oct 1994]

What Happened Was... is in many ways an admirable movie, and Noonan and Sillas do a quiet, thorough job of representing these two people who seem on the edge of being walled up inside their own walls. There are many small moments of perfect observation. But I never really felt they were building to anything, or heading anywhere. Read full review

Two-character movies are notoriously difficult to sustain, even when benefiting, as here, from one of those late-inning plot twists that casts the movie in a slightly different light. [09 Sep 1994, p.8D]

In performance, as in the rest of this film, Mr. Noonan only haltingly captures what he seeks. Read full review

An uneventful actors' exercise better suited to off-off-Broadway theater. Read full review

It’s hard to believe that these two people, so dissimilar in every way, would be attracted to each other in the first place. It’s even harder to listen to the drone of the numbingly unsympathetic Michael (Noonan, also the movie’s writer and director). When there are only two characters on screen, you’d better rouse concern for both so your viewer is not fatally tempted by the stop button. Read full review