Netflix’s Squared Love – Completely and Totally Deranged

Squared Love is certifiably insane and it’s nice to see that Netflix knows what they have on their hands. A quick read of the plot synopsis is sure to make a lot prospective viewers shaking their heads and possibly overwhelmed while wondering what direction this story could possibly go in. They will be informed that the film is about “A celebrity journalist and renowned womaniser who starts to rethink his life choices after he falls for a mysterious model who leads a double life.” That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the idiosyncrasies that this Polish romantic comedy has up its sleeve. They don’t touch on the fact that the model has ties to an organised crime syndicate, the journalist is raising his emotionally stunted niece and the modern has a Clark Kent-esque disguise which allows her to serve as a teacher without having her secret identity discovered.

Squared Love follows Klaudia (Chlebicka), a world famous model who has a secret identity as a schoolteacher. She is able to keep her two different lives separate and aims to pay off her family’s debts to a crime syndicate by taking on several high profile modelling gigs. She risks losing her teaching job because she is always late to school and does not get along with her superiors. Her well ordered life is thrown off balance when she meets journalist Enzo (Banasiuk). He’s a playboy who is estranged from his family and he struggles to rise to the challenge when he is asked to care for one of his relatives. He and Klaudia spend a lot of time together because they are working on a television commercial together. They are clearly attracted to one another but they are both lying about who they really are and this causes problems. She feels as though she will lose herself if everybody knows who she really is and she has to confront all of her fears. This stops her from fully pursuing Enzo and it leaves them questioning what they are willing to sacrifice in order to be together.

It’s commendable that the film didn’t even try to make the main characters sympathetic or likeable. Enzo is wealthy, handsome, and doesn’t appear to work very hard. We see him picking up random women in parking garages and it’s hard to believe that he can seduce career girls within a matter of seconds just by running his hands over the bonnets of their cars. Klaudia is aloof and distant as well as being very willing to destroy an entire set simply because she wants to quickly vacate the premises of her modelling job. Also a model, it’s hard to root for her and it also poses a problem for the director as he has to find an innovative way of filming a woman as she stands around and…poses. At least if she were a singer or an actress, you could argue that she has a craft and has to remain dedicated to studying it but success in modelling is often based on whether or not you were born beautiful. The fact that there is plenty of exercise involved in keeping in shape but Abbey Lee Kershaw can’t possible be working as hard as your average tradesman. They commit to this bold choice and try to immerse us in the cutthroat Polish fashion industry.

The use of Warsaw as a setting was also fascinating. Here, it’s a sunny urban locale in which there is a thriving fashion industry and a swimwear commercial on every street corner. Though there are certainly no celebrity journalists in any modern city, this almost wants to be something like the 1930s. We’re meant to believe that the two leading characters are incredibly famous, when that conveniently helps the plot to move forward, and yet we see more of their lives outside of their illustrious careers. Klaudia’s modelling is reduced to scenes in which she poses in a disgusting, curly wig and we never see him putting together one of his articles. Their jobs end up just being background noise at some point and the script tries to ask serious questions about the failings of the Polish educational system and the responsibility that advertisers have to be honest about the products they are selling. It’s all terribly high minded and yet utterly preposterous. That mixture is admirable in its own bizarre way and the fact that the screenwriters were aiming high was appreciated.

Where Squared Love truly disappointed was in the romantic encounters between the two leads. Apart, they are fascinatingly odd and some pleasure can be derived out of seeing the actors trying to grapple with all of the discordant and contradictory traits that they have been asked to incorporate into their characterisations of these people. The limitations of the actors become very clear in the scenes where these two have to get up close and personal. They both choose to smoulder in almost every scene but there isn’t that much chemistry between them and the script doesn’t allow them to get into too many wacky hi-jinks. The film walks off the beaten path when it comes to every other aspect of its story but it remains frustratingly traditional when it comes to its central romance. 

In the end, Squared Love is still something worth checking out because it is so off its rocker that one can’t help but keep watching it.

still courtesy of Netflix

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Zita Short

I am passionate about screwball comedies from the 1930s and certain actresses from the Golden Age of Hollywood. I’ll aim to review new Netflix releases and write features, so expect a lot of romantic comedies and cult favourites.