Smitten for a rom-com’s quest for connection

Responding to The Perfect Knight by Stephané Alexandre

The Perfect Knight, 2023 (Film still)

A rom-com is made in the opening credits, and directed by Stephané Alexandre, The Perfect Knight’s are filled with hand-drawn biro stars, lightning bolts and xoxos. A tiny heart sits atop the “i” in “knight”. And with Spice’s So Mi Like It as the opening track, it feels fresh, exciting, but still with the comfort this genre brings. 

The film begins and we meet Alie (Jessica Allain), our protagonist and hopeless romantic, narrating the contents of her private journal. For the next 12 minutes, I’m prepared to live vicariously through her as she longs to find her “Prince Charming”. Alie hopes she’ll lock eyes with her prince from across a room, but a blind date set up by her best friend, Leila (Lauren Foster) will have to do instead. 

I, for one, am smitten with Alie’s quest for true love, and fully invested in her happiness. We overhear her private thoughts which assure me that she is genuine, hopeful and open to navigating love’s vulnerability. Often, a rom-com protagonist is a bit of a mess, but I find Alie hopeful rather than hopeless. I admire her subtle feminine strength, and I want to believe that confident radiant women really can have it all – they deserve it. 

After an encounter with a silicone bra, Alie is running late for her blind date, and her phone battery is dead. Her encounter with the snooty hostess at the reception of the five-star hotel reminds me that, even in an idealistic genre, no woman of colour’s quest for love is complete without a daily microaggression. It’s sadly comforting that this encounter is included in the film. 

I can practically smell Alie’s frenzied perfume spritz through my screen. As her finger falters over which lift button to press, so does my memory: was it five or six? This blip of hesitation fades away as the doors open, this setting is softer, sexier, and there he is, resting at the end of the bar, her Prince Charming, Daniel (CJ Beckford). “You’re here. It’s all that matters.” She’s nervous, but he’s enchanted nonetheless. They both are. And so am I, sucked into the nervous sparkling energy that is a first date. When she shares her intention to be “open and present,” he listens deeply, and he affirms her words, suggesting they commit to them together. 

The timeline of the conversation starts to flit out of real time. Camera frames focused on their faces, they dance through first date topics – eyes dazzling for one other. She guesses he’s a Libra, a good guess, but he’s not, nor an Aquarius either. “Taurus!” I shout at the screen, “Is he a Taurus?!” We don’t find out. 

When Alie excuses herself to the cloakroom, her fears become mine. I realise how deeply I’d sunken into the real-life fantasy of her date. I’d forgotten that her stunning jumpsuit is actually a full-body awkward shuffle to use the toilet. In this moment of reality, I remember that Daniel is a stranger. I remember to hope that there’s no catch. Alie deserves true love! Surely we can trust Daniel? 

What’s his story? We don’t really know and it doesn’t really matter, because he knows Lei, and we trust Lei. And this is Alie’s story. So, surrender to the chemistry, which is undeniable. 

The soundtrack of The Perfect Knight takes us on a journey in and out and through Alie’s head. When the couple land in the cabaret venue, they have continued their date at another location and a live performance from Tawiah blends Alie’s fantasy with reality. Tawiah sings, “Before you could even say, ‘Watch out!’ I’d fallen,” and it could be true of both of our protagonists. But it’s also true of me, the viewer, quickly falling head over heels for their love-at-first-sight story. 

At the end of the night he puts her in a cab. He sends her the cute selfie they took together, and a text: “I still smell of you and that’s a good thing.” The film ends on a plot twisting cliffhanger. Alie drops an actual f-bomb and so does Lei – so do I. The scrapbook credits return, and greedily, I pause at each frame to read every word of Alie’s handwriting because I MUST KNOW what happens next! 

I’m left feeling charmed by the evening’s mishaps. What goes wrong only illuminates what goes really right. A perfect knight can shine only when one is so familiar with imperfection. I recall the hazy frames of their effervescent eye contact across the hours of their evening. In the fresh context of who they really are, and how they really met, I realise with warmth, Alie’s wish came true: the eyes of two strangers did meet across a room.