Director Michael Dowse on a New Formula for Romantic Comedy

Michael Dowse directed the rambunctious hockey-fight comedy “Goon” (2011), so it’s no surprise that for his new romantic comedy “What If,” he skated around some of the sappier tropes of the genre.

“We tried to slap down any romcom convention,” the Ontario-born director says. “So if people run toward the airport at the end of a romcom, we have him running away from the airport. If he goes to rescue the girl and be honest with her, he gets punched in the face.”

The film, which premiered last year at the Toronto International Film Festival and opens in theaters this Friday, stars Daniel Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan as Wallace and Chantry, young, single Canadians who amuse each other endlessly, but due to other attachments (Chantry’s boyfriend who ends up punching Wallace) have agreed to be just friends. In Dowse’s native Canada the film goes by its original title, “The F Word.” (F is for friend.)

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