#5 & #6: Somebody I Used to Know & Your Place or Mine
★★ & ★★½
Time’s flying, it’s already almost mid-February!
We're in full swing of Black History Month. I wanted to give you guys a primer of a few recent, unheralded Black movies. I was deciding between titles like The Old Guard directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood and some others. But then on the first day of the month into my inbox flew Maya S. Cade’s, 28 Films for the 28 Days of Black History Month. Cade is the foremost expert on Black cinema, launching Black Film Archive in 2020—a living register on Black movies from 1898 to 1989. I implore you to check out Black Film Archive and the BFA blog linked below; the work she’s doing to make these forgotten and overlooked films accessible is nothing short of remarkable.
In addition to Black History Month, February is also a time for romance, with the month’s halfway mark signaling that it’s time to get the person you love a bouquet of flowers. The Valentine’s Day holiday approaching means romantic comedies are sure to follow: Netflix got us started at the end of last month with You People; Magic Mike's Last Dance premiered last night; and today, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are competing for access to their audience’s libidinous desires with the two movies below.
#5: Somebody I Used to Know movie review & film summary (2023) ★★
All our lives, most of us are given conflicting advice about how to properly navigate the future as we grow older. Either by our parents, by popular media, or by other means we’re told to both follow our dreams – usually a career based on a hobby or talent – and also to chase love. In reality, those two instructions cannot always be achieved in unison. To do one, you must abandon the other. And whichever decision you make, you’re betraying a need deep in your core to survive the doldrums of life.
Somebody I Used to Know, Dave Franco’s (The Rental) sophomore directorial effort, pulls no punches by diving deep into this very contradiction. Franco, in collaboration with his wife and the movie’s star Allison Brie (Mad Men), wrote an original script inspired by the romantic comedies of the 1980s and ‘90s. It’s about Ally, played by Brie, the host and showrunner of a reality baking show, Dessert Island. After the show’s artificially dramatic season finale, Ally finds out the show she’s not all that passionate about is canceled, causing her to flee Hollywood for a short return back home to Leavenworth, Washington.
In its early stages, the movie, as my girlfriend said, has all the makings of a “Hallmark Christmas return home meet-cute.” Ally serendipitously runs into her longtime ex-boyfriend Sean, played by Jay Ellis (Insecure). The two former lovers get right back where they left off, spending the night together gallivanting around the small town. And then we get the movie’s twist. Will the duo rekindle their past flame or has time, and a career choice, run out the clock on their love?
Somebody I Used to Know has a solid cast: Brie and Ellis are believable as a couple; Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense) and Julie Hagerty (Airplane!) are hilarious and the movie earns every bit of its R-rating; Danny Pudi (Community) is the film’s moral compass, saying what the audience wants to scream at the main characters; and Kiersey Clemons, to me, is the film’s standout. Clemons had her breakout role in the 2015 fan favorite Dope, but since hasn’t had the opportunities she deserves to really shine. Another rom-com where she’s the lead or a supporting role in a bigger movie would be the perfect vehicle to reintroduce her to audiences. All that being said, I just couldn’t sink my nails into the film’s plot. Once the initial shock of the twist wears off, Franco and Brie’s script just doesn’t take you anywhere of substance until abruptly we get to the film’s resolution.
Somebody I Used to Know (Amazon Studios) directed by Dave Franco is streaming exclusively on Amazon Prime Video today.
#6: Your Place or Mine movie review & film summary (2023) ★★½
The one that got away. Or maybe the one you never realized got away until much later. That’s the premise of Aline Brosh McKenna’s directorial debut, Your Place or Mine. Starring romantic comedy veterans Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher, Your Place or Mine tells the story of Debbie (Witherspoon) and Peter’s (Kutcher) decades-long friendship. Once upon a time at a party in the early aughts, the duo hooked up. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t magical. Or so they thought. The story then fast forwards to the present-day. Debbie is a single mother living in a quaint Los Angeles home, Peter is a 6-month fling max kind of guy living out a bachelor’s dream in Brooklyn; neither are particularly happy with their lives. When Debbie’s nanny bails on her right before her week-long trip to New York for an accounting class, the two friends swap homes and lives.
Brosh McKenna, like her film’s two co-stars, is also no stranger to the rom-com genre. She wrote Three to Tango (1999), Laws of Attraction (2004), The Devil Wears Prada (2006), 27 Dresses (2008), and outside of the genre, co-created The CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. She knows all the notes to hit to get the audience to come along. But in my estimation, it misses the mark of her past work. Tig Notaro (Tig Notaro: Boyish Girl Interrupted) and Steve Zahn (National Security) do their best to bring a comedic punch to this movie, and Jesse Williams (Grey’s Anatomy) and Zoë Chao (The High Note) round out the cast. Your Place or Mine just doesn’t put the pieces all together as well as it could have.
In the movie’s promotional run, much was made on social media of Witherspoon and Kutcher’s lack of red carpet chemistry. Hollywood actors are real people in real relationships; there’s no reasonable expectation for them to pretend to actually be in love a la Oscar Issac and Jessica Chastain at the Venice Film Festival in 2021. However, when promoting a movie, I do think it’s telling when co-stars do not appear as warm and cordial as they could. Look no further than last year’s Don’t Worry Darling debacle. The lack of chemistry on the red carpet mirrored the lack of romantic chemistry shown in the movie. I left unconvinced of Debbie and Peter’s compatibility. Maybe Brosh McKenna, in a rejection of her life’s work to this point, wanted to display a more realistic depiction of romance, but that’s not why we go to rom-coms. At their highest levels, they make us believe in the over-the-top, head-over-heels kind of love. It’s possible Your Place or Mine was held back by its PG-13 rating, but I don’t buy it. You don’t need nudity or graphic sex to be sensual–insinuate sensuality, display courtship, something. Like Mila Kunis said about the red carpet, I needed more.
2.5 is very on par for ‘Your Place…’
Just in time for LOVE Month