"It's not just one moment that defines your life."
Look Both Ways is an American Romantic Comedy directed by Wanuri Kahiu and written by April Prosser for Netflix.
It stars Lili Reinhart as Natalie, a college senior from Austin, Texas who takes a pregnancy test after sleeping with her friend Gabe (Danny Ramirez). Two parallel realities diverge from the result of this pregnancy test — in one where it's negative, Natalie moves to Los Angeles to begin her career as an artist; and in another where it's positive, she and Gabe try to coparent their daughter Rosie in Austin. The film cuts back and forth between these two outcomes over the next five years to see how Natalie develops.
The film also stars David Corenswet as LA-based love interest Jake, Nia Long as her boss Lucy, Aisha Dee as Natalie's best friend Cara, and Luke Wilson and Andrea Savage as Natalie's parents. The film premiered on August 17, 2022.
Tropes:
- But We Used a Condom!: After Natalie reveals that Gabe knocked her up, both of them note that they used protection.
- Career Versus Family: The central conceit: Natalie either moves to Los Angeles to start her creative career, or move back in with her parents in Austin after she falls pregnant. She makes strides towards both in both realities, and the movie suggests that women can in fact have it all.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The Los Angeles reality is denoted with pink, orange and yellow costume and set design; the Austin reality with grays, greens, and blues. If Natalie from the LA reality visits Austin, her warm wardrobe stands out among the cool colors; similarly, when Natalie from the Austin reality visits LA, she wears cool colors among the warm set design.
- A Degree in Useless: Natalie's parents are aghast that Gabe is a history major because it's not a degree that will support his baby with Natalie.
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion: The film follows two worlds: one where Natalie isn't pregnant on the night of her graduation, and the other one where she is. In the latter reality, she briefly considers abortion but decides to keep the baby because she feels she was meant to do so.
- Grand Romantic Gesture: In the Los Angeles reality, Jake flies back from Nova Scotia for Natalie's short film premiere, and the two lovers are happily reunited.
- Gray Rain of Depression: After Gabe tells Natalie that he's proposed to his girlfriend, she drives their daughter to her parents' in a downpour. The same downpour in the Los Angeles reality occurs after Natalie is fired and has broken up with Jake.
- Hands-On Approach: Gabe demonstrates drumming to Natalie by standing behind her so his chest is pressed to her back and taking her hands to drum. The two kiss afterwards.
- Happily Married: Natalie's parents are very happy together and are initially upset when their pregnant daughter moves in with them because it ruins their amorous, freewheeling empty nester lifestyle.
- Honorable Marriage Proposal: Modern version. In the reality where he gets her pregnant, Gabe proposes to Natalie to make their coparenting easier. Her parents interrupt, and she tells him that she would prefer him to marry someone he is in love with.
- In Spite of a Nail: Two drastically different plots happen as a result of Natalie's pregnancy test, however...
- Austin Natalie visits Los Angeles and bumps into Jake, Los Angeles Natalie's boyfriend.
- In both realities, Natalie is accepted into the South by Southwest film festival. Austin Natalie even gets to be on a panel with Los Angeles Natalie's boss, Lucy. Los Angeles Natalie meets with her now-married old friend/fling Gabe and admits the pregnancy scare to him.
- At the end of the film, both Natalies walk past her old sorority house, where she reassures herself that it worked out for the best.
- Juxtaposed Reflection Poster: The film's two parallel worlds diverge from whether or not Natalie gets pregnant after sex with Gabe. The poster shows Natalie's "two lives" — one advancing her creative career, the other a pregnant soon-to-be-mom: posed similarly and aligned on promotional material.
- Live-Action Adaptation: Discussed by Natalie and Jake. Natalie thinks that live-action remakes of animations are an affront to the art form, while Jake thinks there is value in retelling a story a different way.
- Long-Distance Relationship: In the LA reality, Jake and Natalie's suffers a setback after he moves to Nova Scotia for a producing job and they struggle to make long distance work.
- Mood Lighting: The "young creative" Los Angeles plot is lit in warm reds and yellows; the "young mom" Austin plot in cool blues and greens.
- Painted CGI: Discussed when aspiring artist Natalie applies for an assistant job at an animation studio. She mentions that she studied both 2D and 3D animation to help her chances at employment. Though her dream is to become an illustrator, she notes that working with 3D isn't devoid of that and cites Spider Man Into The Spiderverse and Paperman as examples.
- Platonic Co-Parenting: In one reality, Gabe and Natalie are friends who hook up. Natalie gets pregnant from their tryst so the two platonically coparent before eventually getting together.
- Pregnancy Scare: The plots diverge based on Natalie feeling unwell and taking a pregnancy test after her hookup with Gabe. In the Austin reality, she's actually pregnant, but in the Los Angeles reality it was because of food poisoning.
- Split Timelines Plot: The film follows two different worlds — one where Natalie's pregnancy test is positive, and another where it's negative.
- Shout-Out: Natalie is an animation nerd and cites Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Paperman, Watership Down, A Whisker Away, and Spirited Away among other works.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: In the Austin reality, an exhausted Natalie confides in Gabe that she feels that motherhood has emptied her as a person. Gabe tells her that she is accomplishing so much already.
