The title of this relationship comedy refers to a digital detox; but, watching it, the only unplugging you might be tempted to do is yanking the plug out of the mains socket. It’s an almost entirely unfunny comedy from Debra Neil-Fisher, who edited the Hangover movies and makes her directing debut lumbered with a stinker of a script; it’s not smart enough to work as a grownup relationship movie, and laughs are too few for a proper comedy.
To be fair, there’s a relaxed chemistry between Eva Longoria and Matt Walsh playing husband and wife: she plays workaholic control freak Jeanine who does something high up in property development while her husband Dan (played by Walsh) recently quit his career in marketing to start an artisanal chilli sauce business in their garage. Both are permanently glued to their phones.
In an attempt to “reconnect” with each other, Dan books a weekend getaway to the sticks. Naturally, the couple encounter the usual lineup of countryside wackos, including an oddball survivalist and a grunting redneck who runs them off his land with a rifle. To add to their woes, the town has zero phone reception – the survivalist has a conspiracy theory about that involving the Chinese government and local drone activity. The sheer number of scenes of Jeanine and Dan waggling their phones in the air may have you screaming in irritation.
If some of the comedy sticks, it’s mostly down to Longoria and Walsh’s easygoing performances. And, OK, there are a couple of funny lines. Still, this is a mostly laugh-free zone – hitting a low point in a scene where Longoria’s Jeanine accidentally breaks the leg of a farmyard chicken and dribbles an aspirin-and-water formula into its beak like a momma bird. And apart from the odd prickle of ashamed recognition watching the pair’s existential panic in a world without wifi, there’s not much here that’s particularly insightful about phone addiction either.
• Unplugging is available on 13 June on digital platforms.
