The Accountant 2 Could’ve at Least Let Ben Affleck Find Love

Light spoilers for The Accountant 2 follow.

With his marriage to Jennifer Lopez fraying, Ben Affleck had the same first instinct as many Hollywood stars: Focus on an action movie. Sure, Affleck was already developing The Accountant 2 before he even married Lopez, but the action sequel became a favorite excuse for why he started skipping Lopez’s big events and living separately from her. It sounded like Affleck just wanted to bro out with Jon Bernthal on set to forget his girl trouble. As it turns out, Affleck wasn’t avoiding his impending singleness on The Accountant 2, because even his onscreen character couldn’t land the girl.

I went into this film knowing Affleck’s divorce lurked in the background. But I was surprised, early on, to see that subtext become text. The first time we’re reintroduced to Affleck’s Christian Wolff, an accountant with autism and a killer instinct, he’s getting ready for a speed-dating event, as if he never had an accountant love interest (Anna Kendrick) whom he saved and gave a painting to in the first movie. At the mixer, Wolff has the longest line of interested women — whom he proceeds to turn off with awkward answers about tax advice and having no friends — because, of course, he schemed the compatibility software. Wolff’s desire for connection is an undercurrent of the film, through his interactions with his brother, Braxton (Bernthal). During one lull in the action, Braxton takes his brother out to a bar, where Wolff proceeds to impress a woman with the line-dancing skills he quickly picked up from the pattern of steps. He even leaves with her number — but for an accountant, Wolff does a bad job of keeping track of (phone) numbers and loses it.

The film ends without him ever following up with the woman from the bar or hearing from any of the others from the speed-dating event. (None of them were willing to overlook his awkwardness for the stability of dating an accountant?!) Just like Affleck, Wolff is a single man at the end of The Accountant 2.

Maybe it was too painful for Affleck to even entertain the thought of his character falling in love given what was going on in his own life. But I doubt that, given that the dating story line gets planted early in the film and comes up multiple times. Director Gavin O’Connor has teased that Wolff may “finally get the love that he deserves” in a third movie, with his original love interest Kendrick up for returning. But what will it matter by then, once Affleck has moved on from his own heartbreak? After all, films are supposed to give us hope. After Affleck and Lopez’s split made us feel like love wasn’t real, The Accountant 2 could’ve made us believe in love again. Can we get The Accountant 3: Filing Jointly?

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