I had high hopes for Netflix’s new rom com, Someone Great. Directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson and starring Gina Rodriguez, Brittany Snow, LaKeith Stanfield and DeWanda Wise, this was sure to be a fun, sensitive dramedy with some powerful insights into modern relationships. The trailer looked like this could be the second coming of Bridesmaids, complete with weed, Lizzo and an interesting breakup story thrown in for emotional candour. I gave it a watch and it went like this: Jenny (Rodriguez) gets the opportunity of a lifetime to work as a music journalist for Rolling Stone in San Francisco. This prompts the breakdown of her nine year relationship with boyfriend Nate (Stanfield), as she has to relocate from New York to California, and he is unwilling to commit to a long distance relationship. This decision also leads to an epic last-night-out-on-the-town situation with her two best friends (Snow and Wise).
Disappointingly, this is a film that occupies that not-good-not-bad territory so many rom coms tend to fall into. Will this film go down as a classic that captures the essence of human love and heartbreak? Almost definitely not. The film plays as an exercise in millennial clichés, almost as if someone asked the producers to cram as many millennial-isms into the script. Harry Potter/Buzzfeed references? Check. Precarious careers? Check. Social media? Check. Ru Paul cameo? Check. Nostalgia and refusal to grow up? Check. Faux empowerment and twerking? Check.
Some of these observations make the film unique and current; there is no denying that this is a film made in 2018/19. But by trying so hard to be of its time, the plot is often messy, and the dialogue sometimes comes across as false, or the situations unrealistic. The biggest problem is the unbelievable friendship dynamic between the three main characters. There is Jenny, the free spirited and heartbroken fiery latina lead. Then there is Erin, played by Wise, who is a black lesbian with commitment issues. Blair (Snow) is the straight-laced white girl in an unhappy relationship who has a ‘bad’ side. The casting is clearly a stab at diversity, but without the believability to back it up, the film falls short. Little is done to show what these characters have in common, except their college memories and love of weed, thereby leading to a series of forced interactions between people you can’t quite believe would be friends in real life. The most authentic interaction occurs near the end, when Blair tells Erin to grow up and acknowledge her feelings for her girlfriend, because life isn’t the same as when they were 20.
This unbelievable dynamic would’ve been less of a problem if the dialogue were authentic. Instead, the film is peppered with weak interactions and side narratives that do little to move the plot forward. Take, for, instance this interaction between Erin, Blair and Jenny, when they are debating whether or not to smoke weed on the street:
Erin: ‘does bad Blair want to come out and play?’
Blair: ‘no, bad Blair does not want to come out and play. It is noon’
Jenny: ‘Blair, please, this doobie just literally came from the heavens.’
Does anyone actually talk like this?
I was surprised to see that contemporary rom coms such as this still rely on boxing characters into tired clichés, such as the white, blonde girl being stuck up and dull, with little personality or desire for fun. Worse still is the incredibly forced sexual interaction between Blair and an ex-college friend/lover Matt (Peter Vack), with whom she cheats on her long-term boyfriend in his office (!?). When Blair admits to her boyfriend that she has cheated on him, he dissolves in relief, admitting he feels the same lack of affection towards her, and they go their separate ways. Are we supposed to believe that these two characters have been living in complete oblivion to each others’ ambivalence for years?
The relationship between Erin and her girlfriend is not much better, and little time is given to exploring their arc. As a viewer, I lacked emotional investment in any of the central characters, which is a huge problem when the point of a rom com is to illicit empathy and emotion.
Despite Jenny and Nate’s relationship acting as the central plot device which drives the film’s action, little is done to show the relationship from Nate’s perspective. He is, above all, a presence that catalyses the crazy bender the three women embark upon. This is fine, but the film never makes up its mind about what it wants to be. The constant flashbacks between past and present are jarring, throwing us back to a time when Jenny and Nate were happy, but doing little to show a complex or interesting relationship worth caring about. The constant change in tone between comedy and sadness lead to me feeling as if I were clutching at straws, searching for a narrative arc I could hold onto and care about. By trying to be all things at once, Someone Great ends up being nothing at all.
The female perspective 