- Network: Netflix
- Series Premiere Date: May 24, 2019
Critic Reviews
- Critic score
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- By date
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Kelley doesn’t slow down after the pilot, and he manages to sustain the suspense over 10 hours of well-staged melodrama.
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Its sense of giddy, unashamed fun buoys it even as the seams show. ... As it stands, it’s a captivating bit of cheese, anchored by a star making the most of a very strange moment.
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Everything serves to highlight Zellweger’s gloriously goofy performance. As Anne Montgomery, the actress doesn’t so much chew the scenery as absorb it through every pore.
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When Zellweger’s not on screen, “What/If” is a mostly empty, broad strokes neo-noir soap, frothy and forgettable. When she appears, it’s still all of those things—but dear lord, please pass the popcorn.
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What/If has its longueurs and Levy and Jenner’s lack of chemistry lands like a dead fish. But it roars to life whenever Zellweger is on screen. Tossing her hair and crinkling her eyes, she’s a baroque riot. Her performance alone makes What /If a contender for guilty pleasure of the year.
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What/If has just enough emotional truth mixed in with the absurdity to stop it spiralling into absolute madness.
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If you can get past the thorny, sticky dialogue (a big if), What/If has an interesting premise about ostensibly good people doing bad things.
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Whatever sizzle there is baked into the premise, in the execution, What/If feels a little too close to "So what?"
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There is a prestige drama version of the show in which Anne's long game is actually surprising, and there is a guilty-pleasure version of the show that burns through twice the plot in half the time.
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What/If transcends junk-food TV and moves into the realm of trans-fat TV. It's definitely bad for you but good luck resisting it. [27 May - 9 Jun 2019, p.13]
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The joy, guilty pleasure, escape-from-this-crazy-world a show like What/If should provide simply isn’t there.
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What/If basically rips off Indecent Proposal and then admits to doing so, as if that's a clever thing. The series stars a miscast Renée Zellweger as Anne Montgomery. ... [The episodes] are larded with bad writing, dubious editing choices and the kind of weightless fluff that props up most network soap operas.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 12 out of 30
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Mixed: 8 out of 30
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Negative: 10 out of 30
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Jun 6, 2019
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Jun 5, 2019It's corny, pulpy, a bit campy, and has terrible dialogue, but oh boy it's so much fun to watch. A binge-worthy guilty pleasure for me.
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May 25, 2019