A Thought Provoking But Lacking Documentary
In our increasingly digitalised world, The Dating Project examines our changing attitude toward love and relationships and how things like Tinder and Social Media have changed the way we think about dating. While you may not agree with some of the viewpoints from the various people interviewed, The Dating Project is still a thought provocative documentary and one that asks a really interesting question about what the future of romance may hold for us, even if does feel a little dated and lacklustre with its execution. With the recent announcement that 50% of Americans are now single, The Dating Project is a 75 minute documentary collating a series of face to face interviews with various singles of different age groups on their quest for love and the trials and tribulations that brings. For the most part, The Dating Project is relatively simple in presentation, sticking to conventional ways of illustrating its points rather than flashy editing and cinematography. Most of the people interviewed are diverse and present a range of different societal viewpoints including devout Christians, naive college students and career-focused people in their 30s, helping to flesh out the documentary with a range of attitudes on love. The thought provocative way The Dating Project explores its themes is what makes this such an interesting watch but the lack of compelling solutions to these questions and an archaic structure to the dating world make this ultimately feel outdated and a little superficial in its execution. A college professor is the driving force for much of the informative discussion here, breaking down dating into 3 levels and educating impressionable college students around how to date rather than jumping into bed with someone straight away at a social hookup. It’s certainly a positive message and one that should be encouraged more but rules like “You ask for a date, you pay the bill” is incredibly archaic and detracts from the overall message this documentary is going for. Although The Dating Project has some nice ideas and raises some serious questions around the future of dating, it’s ultimately quite the passive watch, failing to really dive into the psychological cause around our reluctance to approach the opposite sex and what effect technology has had on us to exacerbate this issue. There are certainly more educational and informative documentaries out there but The Dating Project still provides a relatively interesting view on what effect our reliance on technology has had on the future of dating and romance in general. Ultimately this is a 75 minute, largely forgettable documentary that asks some interesting questions but can’t quite seem to execute them in a compelling or engaging way.
