Directed By Aline Brosh McKenna

Starring – Reese Witherspoon, Ashton Kutcher, Steve Zahn

The Plot – Two long-distance best friends (Witherspoon, Kutcher) change each other’s lives when she decides to pursue a lifelong dream and he volunteers to keep an eye on her teenage son (Wesley Kimmel).

Rated PG-13 for suggestive material and brief strong adult language

Your Place Or Mine | Official Trailer | Netflix – YouTube

POSITIVES

Witherspoon and Kutcher bring their all to this engagement, harvesting a naturalistic chemistry and abundance of personality that allows each of them and the film an endearing balance between respective arcs. For Kutcher, it’s a more subdued turn than we’re used to seeing from him in comedies, illustrating Peter with a heart of gold beneath his upper class wealth that constantly gives us someone to invest in, and Witherspoon at this point can play the every-woman in her sleep, but it’s infectious radiance that she emits as Debbie that wholeheartedly embraces the cute and corny sentiments of the movie’s tonal consistency, supplanting two meaty and meaningful performances that at the very least keep the film watchable through some truly unfavorable circumstances. One such element not in the negatives category is the experimentation with the editing schemes that boldly illustrates the personality that the film’s presentation is constantly sifting through, with split-screens and scrolling transitions that help to bridge the gap of distance between our dual protagonists. The splits in particular constantly fool the audience into thinking that these two are in the same room while communicating with each other, especially in the way each of them are framed at opposite ends of the screen, which all but eviscerates the visible line of division between them that vividly conveys the magnitude of their unshakeable bond.

NEGATIVES

If you told me that “Your Place or Mine” was a film that was made in 2003, I would believe you, and not in ways that are complimentary to its initial setting being from that very same year. For starters, the film is littered with derivative familiarity from other, better romantic comedies, and the kind that twenty years after their status quo feel stale in a film that history conveys should’ve learned from past mistakes. You’ve seen it before: he’s the rebel who lives life fast, and she’s the stuffy and safe house mom with no desire to take chances in her otherwise transquil existence. They change places and learn more about the other in the process, which then forcefully opens their eyes to the value of the other in their own lives, and then speaks directly to us the audience to convey heavy-handed exposition so laced with ideas and character traits that it lacks naturalism or sincerity in the process. This makes the film overtly sappy in ways that aren’t remotely charming or especially funny, remaining comfortable on the sitcom level of humor and childish gags that have become a mainstay recently with Netflix comedies. When I say that I didn’t laugh a single time throughout this film, I mean that it didn’t even come close, bringing to mind the memories of last year’s other Netflix comedy “Me Time”, but without the ratings freedom to at least promote possibilities within adult material. On top of this, the film is heavily predictable, with an evolution and ending that you could easily sniff out after reading the aforementioned plot synopsis above. It’s so grounded and safe that it never even tries to remotely place these characters in any kind of even momentary plights to their otherwise perfectly paved paths of expectations, in turn checking off the boxes of conventionalism that ultimately and unfortunately define much of the film’s prominence. In addition to this, the direction and overall production values leave more to be desired, especially with the look of the film that feels lifted from network television. Part of this effect lends itself to the unnatural lighting schemes that supposedly emmanate from the many windows in and around these dual settings, with obvious levels of color filters illustrating a bright and shiny canvas to convey the fluffy surroundings of the film’s artificial personality, but more so on some hollow levels of special effects that are a continuous distraction on the integrity of the scenes they adorn. Why a film like this requires computer generated backdrops is beyond me, especially since its budget should afford it the freedom to rent out a New York skyline apartment, but like its view from beyond, it’s simply not there, and we’re left with dimensions of lifeless green-screen so hollow that you nearly see the outline of its textures when a character stands in front of it. Finally and probably the most arduous with respects to my investment to the film, the repetition of The Cars’ dominated soundtrack quickly overstays its welcome in the opening fifteen minutes, then grows to pure frustration by the film’s midway point. Early on, Peter is established as a huge fan of The Cars, so the soundtrack has to take advantage of this non-chalantly throughout, with as many as nine songs from the band deposited forcefully within the confines of the accommodating scenes, making it feel quickly like a musical or biopic for the band, but without them ever appearing. It makes me fearful for the next time I hear a character in a movie mention a musical artist that they enjoy, for the idea that I will be forced to endure their entire catalogue, even when the lyrics or instrumentals craft opposing feelings to those being conveyed in the context of the sequences they adorn.

OVERALL
“Your Place or Mine” is an example of an eviction come too late, with derivatively unoriginal ingredients that feel like a greatest hits collection of other romantic comedies, when it’s not a greatest hits collection for The Cars. Though Witherspoon and Kutcher vibe well off of one another, despite the miles of geography between them, the return is an unfunny, predictability and syrupy sweet kind of fluff that belongs on the Hallmark Channel, with a mirroring kind of predictability that never requires you to watch it.

My Grade: 3/10 or F