"No. Yes. Maybe." On an unexpected road trip detour with an unexpected passenger, Victor, the main character in The Man With The Answers, struggles to answer one of the 20 unexpected questions being asked by this new travel partner, Mathias. “You can’t answer everything with a yes or no, ” Victor ultimately concludes, and Mathias offers a poignant response: “I guess the world has become too complex for simple answers.”

In many ways, Mathias is right. Victor's relationship with his mom is fraught from complex feelings he struggles to express. And the sudden befriending of this stranger challenges the simple way of life he’s established for himself. Brimming with tender affectivity, counterintuitive notions of attraction, and an earnest desire for satisfying resolutions, the experience of watching The Man With The Answers is endearing enough. Writer and director Stelios Kammitsis composes a story that demonstrates the complexities of relationships, specifically from the point of view of Victor. And on a superficial level, with a glossy and innocuous approach to formulaic drama and conflict resolution, Kammitsis achieves his goal. But that superficial satisfaction of sexual tension with a stranger overlaid with simmering family drama is upstaged by fundamental flaws in what motivates functional relationships.

In The Man With The Answers, Mathias and Victor have staunch diametrically opposed personalities. Victor - played by Vasilis Magouliotis in his sophomore role in a feature film - is quiet, reserved, and routine. A former diving champion, he now works odd jobs for a living with no apparent friends, social network, or close relationships with family, except presumably with his ailing grandmother whom he had been caring for until her passing early in the film which insites Victor's decision to visit his mother. Mathias, however - played by Anton Weil - is outgoing, spontaneous, and adventurous. Persuading Victor to do things he doesn’t want to seems to be the ultimate goal of Mathais in an effort to uncover truths about Victor’s worldview - an effort that frequently makes Victor uncomfortable.

Victor, however, isn’t the only one uncomfortable throughout this narrative. By the end of the film, I too felt uncomfortable with the experience, as if I myself was trapped under the weight of overbearing peer pressure. The Man With The Answers follows the heartfelt and endearing beats that romance dramas tend to exhibit, and Kammitsis seems to have good intentions with the conflicts he crafts in the script. It’s easy to fall into a trance watching these characters grapple with how to engage with, tolerate, and eventually care about each other. But beneath that familiar and charming skin of romance storytelling are troubling conclusions that Kammitsis draws - perhaps inadvertently - about human behavior and relationships.

The title of the film is appropriate because The Man With The Answers is a tale of two dramas - one revolving around Victor’s strained relationship with his mom and the other with this man he’s only recently met - that begs a lot of questions of its main character even beyond the game of 20 Questions that Mathias imposes on Victor. How is he going to address the negative feelings he has against his mom? Is he really happy with this life of solitude? And why is he so drawn to Mathias - a man he’s only known for a few days who routinely violates his moral standards, persistently disregards his comfort zone, and constantly clashes with his personality?

Victor is, in fact, the man with more answers than the script allows him to give. But what is evident in his pursuit of conflict resolution is that Victor is also the man who is required to change in order to find harmony with the people he’s reluctant to associate with. It’s Victor who has to accept and adapt to Mathias’ intrusiveness and misguided self-righteousness. It’s Victor who has to shift his attitude for his mother’s inability to acknowledge his feelings. It’s Victor who has to constantly adjust his boundaries to preserve relationships. By isolating Victor as the only focus for personal growth, The Man With The Answers overshoots its objective by endorsing the suppression of Victor’s worldview and affirming the undesirable behaviors of others with positive outcomes for excusing them.

I understand by the end of the film why Victor prefers to be alone. The Man With The Answers bears a story that places an unfair weight on him to acclimate to others. In this light, The Man With The Answers falls short on conveying a meaningful story for me. But Kammitsis envelopes this film with enough of the feel-good vibes for many romantics and casual viewers to perhaps forgive or simply overlook the troublesome foundation he's built the relationship of Victor and Mathias on. Which ultimately leaves me in mixed territory on how I feel about The Man With The Answers. Did I enjoy this movie? Are the good qualities enough to outweigh the problematic qualities? Is it a movie I can confidently recommend? Yes. No. Maybe. It seems you really can't answer everything with yes or no after all.

Acting and Casting - 2 | Visual Effects and Editing - 2 | Story and Message - 0 | Entertainment Value - 2 | Music Score and Soundtrack - 1 | Reviewer's Preference - 0 | What does this mean?