Ode to Joy
This is an intermittently humorous though predictable romantic comedy that deftly weaves through some dark passageways before returning to the crowd pleasing formula that typifies the genre. Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy must reexamine his life choices and triumph over internal challenges and fears. Hopefully transformed, newly confident boy goes after girl again hoping for second chance. The hook is that the boy is this case Charlie (Martin Freeman) has a form of narcolepsy that causes him to pass out when he experiences strong emotions, primarily joy. So he walks around with tacks in his shoes, listens to a lot of Wagner, and avoids pretty women. His life gets complicated when he meets a pretty woman Francesca (Morena Baccarin) who for some reason finds him attractive and wants to get to know him. However, as expected Charlie faints when Francesca invites him up for coffee.

In the hospital, visited by his protective younger brother Cooper (Jake Lacy), Charlie suggests that Cooper, a friendly kindergarten teacher, go out with Francesca. Charlie pretends that this is pure altruism on his part, but he has some hidden purposes. Charlie takes up with the quirky and kooky Bethany (Melissa Rauch in a funny and deliberately deglamorized role) a woman who whatever else she is will not trip Charlie's wires as far as platonic or erotic joy is concerned. Freeman nails his role as a stodgy man who claims to be content that life is passing by him ever more quickly. This movie was not as funny or as interesting as it thought it was but it did make me smile a few times.

"When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives."
Winter is Coming

Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky; And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk, the Law runneth forward and back; For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.