"Big shocker: you listen to The Cars in the morning," says Reese Witherspoon's Debbie, a single mother, says to her bestie Peter, a wealthy, single, and childless brand consultant played by Ashton Kutcher.
Since they chat often enough that we watch them blabbing while brushing their teeth, it might be worth wondering why she wouldn't already know that detail.
It would if this were not a Netflix rom-com where the accoutrements matter more than the story's seductiveness. Peter's answer that worships at the altar of Saint Ric Ocasek "morning, noon, and night" is all we need to know. There will be plenty of The Cars in this two-hour time killer, hence the music admirer's prayer that the band's body of work emerges unscathed.
Happily, it does. Bewilderingly, the songs featured do absolutely nothing for the movie or work against it – that's not the band's fault but an indicator of the featherweight value of everything happening around the soundtrack.
Debbie and Peter's story is familiar to love story aficionados, especially those who enjoyed the setup of "The Holiday." "Your Place or Mine" is essentially that, except swapping out the charming elderly guy for Zoë Chao's Minka, a sexy millennial instant friend for Debbie when she zips off to New York. Yes, this is another NY-LA fairy tale about two friends who'd be together but have been kept apart by life's circumstances and the width of the continental United States.
Oddly, the distance between Witherspoon's Debbie and Kutcher's Peter makes the film watchable. They are living inside of each other's lives but, for most of the film, they only share screentime through editing magic – they can't get enough of being on the phone together!
It doesn't even matter that Witherspoon and Kutcher share little chemistry to start with, which is a marketing ploy in itself. How will they sell this affair, and will we remember it? Does it matter if they don't? Yes, and no; these two lack the screen history and magic forged by Julia Roberts and George Clooney, whose names were enough to pull people out of their houses to sit through "Ticket to Paradise" in theaters.
But individually, Witherspoon and Kutcher are famous enough to make homebodies curious to see what they can do in the same movie, if not in the same place. That's enough to tip a person over the line between shrugging at endless choices to clicking "Play."
It's the weekend before Valentine's Day, and this is Netflix's latest feature headlined by stars who have previously lured audiences to theaters. Before "Big Little Lies," "The Morning Show" and "Wild," Witherspoon built her early career in romantic comedies. Kutcher's also been love's fool in a few of those, although his primary claims to fame are still "That '70s Show," "Punk'd" and having invested wisely enough that he only takes roles he wants to.
Kutcher's already in the Netflix stream too, making a cameo appearance in "That '90s Show" with his wife and "That '70s show" co-star Mila Kunis. He's a shiny cog on the workshop table ready to be plugged in the next thing. And that's fine! "Your Place or Mine" is . . . fine. It does not ruin a great American rock band's catalog. But doesn't make the viewer feel much of anything, which is antithetical to the rom-com.
Back in 2018, although rom-coms were on their way to making in comeback theaters by the time "Crazy Rich Asians" hit theaters, Netflix was already being hailed for resurrecting the genre owing to the success of "Set It Up" starring Zoey Deutch, Glen Powell, Lucy Liu, and Taye Diggs. "To All the Boys I've Loved Before" made an even bigger splash.
The adaptation of Jenny Han's novel refreshed the audience's affection for rom-coms by presenting an Asian American heroine in a story influenced by John Hughes films, minus the low-level anguish and with the addition of a far more inclusive cast.
"Set It Up" and "To All the Boys I've Loved Before" was introduced under the service's Summer of Love umbrella, a branding effort that also included "The Kissing Booth." Their success was the result of an overall strategy at Netflix to stake their claim on a film species whose heyday in the '90s and early 2000s via classics like "Bridget Jones' Diary" and "Notting Hill" failed to gain a toehold for most of the 2010s. Rom-coms could not compete at the box office with action movies and broad comedies and lacked the prestige of high-budget dramas.
Many were shunted off to cable channels like Hallmark to be blandified into a predictable formula.
Even so, Netflix's algorithm interpreters soon noticed that rom-coms had a staying power across the board. An executive marveled to the Hollywood Reporter that people were even watching the bad movies all the way through.
Solid scores like Ali Wong's 2019 treat "Always Be My Maybe," which cast Randall Park as a romantic lead and Keanu Reeves as the most unbearable (and yet hilarious) version of himself, gained the streamer good press. But it's been a while since any of its rom-coms has earned as much acclaim or word-of-mouth recommendation for its quality.
What gives? A few things probably, starting with Netflix resting into the idea that rom-coms are easy viewing that doesn't ask much of the audience in terms of emotional investment. "Your Place or Mine" can be video wallpaper keeping you company while you complete other tasks. There's no need to pay attention since the question of whether Debbie and Peter will get together is already decided; that's a foregone conclusion.
Another theory is that action comedies toplined by stars may have replaced the rom-com in our hearts. Witness the success of 2022's "The Lost City" pairing Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum, which earned the highest opening weekend box office for an original film since the pandemic began.
That likely inspired Jennifer Lopez's choice to be the face of "Shotgun Wedding" alongside Josh Duhamel, with Lenny Kravitz and Jennifer Coolidge in the wings. The film skipped U.S. theaters altogether to debut on Prime Video.
And yet, in examining how streaming services try to accommodate the audience's taste for rom-coms, it's disheartening to recognize the robotic calculations that went into pushing out mid movies like these.
Brosh McKenna's previous screenplays include "The Devil Wears Prada" and "27 Dresses," and CW viewers may cherish the energy she brought to co-creating "My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" (whose star, Rachel Bloom, makes a brief appearance here). The vitality in those works makes the yawning indifference "Your Place or Mind" inspires surprising. That is, until you consider it was designed for a platform that seems to view romantic comedies as interchangeable and whatever pull its celebrity cast brings to each film as incidental.
People who appreciate this genre at its best should expect more from Netflix's movie valentines and other movies like it. When the streamer reminded us of how wonderful cinematic romances could be, they invited us to remember that dream of falling for someone, whether the tumble happened fast or extended over decades. Now it treats such tales less like mysteries to be untangled than puzzles to be assembled. The final frame may be movie star gorgeous, but in the long term, good looks are not enough to sustain passion in any relationship.
"Your Place or Mine" is currently streaming on Netflix.
