Rating Unrated in US (UK tbd)
Length 1h44
Release 19.08.2022 in US (UK tbd)
Director Fred Baena
About A woman wins an all-expenses-paid trip to a company’s gorgeous “institute” outside of Florence, and also the chance to meet the restaurant chain’s wealthy and charismatic owner. She finds a different adventure than the one she imagined.
Moon: no moon sighting
Where to Watch: TBD
Trailer:
The Good
- When the humour is good, it’s genius. That is mainly thanks to the ever loveable Zach Woods. He’s more like The Office Zach Woods than his Silicon Valley alter ego, but much more likeable than either.
- Honestly, the only way I tolerated this movie was telling myself it was a GLOW special in which Allison Brie was playing Ruth Wilder playing Amber. The starting music and retro title sequence sold that to me at the start. It allowed a lot of the shoddy to get past me before it was too late.
- Allison Brie cannot really be faulted. She handles the role really well and makes the wooing as believable as it can be. Her chemistry with Aubrey Plaza?! They really should have just ran with that.
The Bad
- It’s a very busy film that, with a few tweaks, could have been a grand ensemble. By tweaks, I mean use the characters as more than plot devices. Molly Shannon, for example, goes from Sadness (yes, capitalised for the blue emotion) to wackadoodle for absolutely no apparent reason.
Yes, sometimes we don’t need to know, but me? Couldn’t keep my mind from screaming “How the fuck was she a manager?” and wondering what like in *that* branch was like. - I wish the film started with Amber arriving in Italy. I don’t feel like I learned anything from the opening 15-ish minutes centred around her life. It doesn’t endear me to her any more than casting Allison Brie in the role does.
The Ugly
- The plot was so haphazard and non existent, I’m pretty certain about 90% of the “script” was improvised. Badly. Painfully.
No amount of Allison Brie being her amazing self was ever going to save this film that was having a massive identity crisis. The comedy was too cringe inducing and the romance was none existent. - The biggest problem for me was the sinister undertones of the first half of the movie. They’re there. They’re under and toney. They’re also underwhelming. I think as an audience, we’re also meant to get swept away by the “romance”.
It’s really hard to when your watching the protagonist get served to the leading male on a plater. The lack of chemistry doesn’t help. Hell, maybe I’m a cynic, but I was never sold. - Finally, what the actual fuck happened to Aubrey Plaza?!
She just fucks off for the last third of the movie and there’s zero resolution with the character. I hope to the celluloid gods there’s an alternate ending because that is the only way this film can redeem it’s romance genre cred.
Final Thoughts
I think it was trying to be satirical and this decades answer to Office Space, but lost itself in production. Or maybe up the creative’s ass! Either way, it’s nowhere near as clever, or original as it thinks it is.
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