It seems telling that the intro to Aline Brosh McKenna’s latest rom-com, Your Place or Mine, is set in the 00s. Namely, 2003. We’re hit over the head with this (along with so many other things) “time period,” not just with a title card that says: “it’s 2003,” but with the additional “cutesy” explanation of the year via, “how can we tell?” followed by arrows that point to accessories worn by the characters the viewer is introduced to, including “trucker hat,” “flat-ironed hair,” “wallet chain,” “pointless earring,” “so many layered shirts” and “wonderbra®”. And yet, for all this “attention to detail,” the song echoing in Debbie’s apartment, “The Sweet Escape” by Gwen Stefani featuring Akon, didn’t actually come out until 2006.
In any case, it’s “telling” that Brosh McKenna would set the movie at the start of the 00s because this feels like the type of cut-and-paste script she might have actually written in the early 00s, before securing clout with 2004’s Laws of Attraction (before that, her only credit was 1999’s forgettable Three to Tango starring Neve Campbell and Matthew Perry). After that, The Devil Wears Prada assured her place in the rom-com hall of fame, only to be further cemented by 27 Dresses and Morning Glory. Things took a dive with I Don’t Know How She Does It and We Bought a Zoo, but there was the promise of Brosh McKenna’s rejuvenation and renaissance in Cruella.
Which is why for Your Place or Mine to follow that up and mark Brosh McKenna’s directorial debut almost leads one to believe that the movie is a script she had lying around in a drawer from back in the day that she nipped and tucked for a quick paycheck. At least, that’s the preferable thing to believe as we watch the predictable plot, which so overtly pulls from Nancy Meyers’ The Holiday and another Ashton Kutcher-starring movie from, quelle coincidence, the 00s called A Lot Like Love.
Just as it is in the latter rom-com, Debbie Dunn (Reese Witherspoon) and Peter Coleman (Kutcher) are two best friends who have sex when they first meet and then devolve into the friend zone, where both are ostensibly “comfortable,” but each one has also long known that there’s a lingering attraction, they just have to repress it deep, deep down until the “appropriate” moment comes (i.e., end of Act Two). At the beginning of the movie, Brosh McKenna tries to “pull a fast one” on the audience with a “trick” split screen intended to make the viewer believe Debbie and Peter are in the same bed together twenty years later as Debbie looks into his eyes and wishes him a happy birthday.
But no, there’s someone else in Peter’s bed as the camera pans over to his girlfriend du moment, Becca (Vella Lovell, a beloved Crazy Ex-Girlfriend alum), asking if he wants coffee. The split screen then becomes pronounced as the captions “Los Angeles” and “New York” provide the geographical context, both locations themselves being a tired cliché in rom-coms about “making a choice” (see also: Friends With Benefits—not to be confused with No Strings Attached, a similarly-premised movie also starring Kutcher). But Your Place or Mine appears designed almost deliberately to be one long, drawn-out cliché.
What’s more, considering how self-aware Brosh McKenna is re: the genre, and how meta she was able to get with Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (co-created with Rachel Bloom, who appears in the movie as Scarlet), Your Place or Mine comes across almost like a knowing taunt on her part. As though to say, “Yeah, this is my genre, watch me dance circles around how easy it is to write one.” Easy to write, sure. Easy to differentiate from all the rest? Not so much. And Your Place or Mine thusly falls easily down the drain of other generic rom-coms fit for the Hallmark Channel.
The only thing to set this one apart from such comparable schlock is that two higher-tier (read: higher cost) actors happen to be in the lead roles. But that does little to salvage what is an unapologetic “by the numbers” rom-com, complete with a requisite dramatic airport reunion in the third act. Then, of course, there’s Debbie’s initial assurance that her heart is made of stone, and that any energy that might be funneled into the search for romance has to go into caring for her only, highly-allergic-to-just-about-everything son, Jack (Wesley Kimmel, yes, Jimmy Kimmel’s nephew—because Hollywood nepotism). So who could possibly melt that “stone” but Peter? A man who himself declares that he’s an “unknowable piece of shit,” which is what he told Debbie after they first hooked up, offering it as a warning and a very viable reason not to pursue anything further with him.
But now, twenty years later, Peter is very known to Debbie. Needless to say, no one knows him better than she does. And obviously, both of them have sold out on the lofty dreams they had when they first met, with Debbie wanting to be a book editor and, oh how perfect, Peter wanting to be a writer. In the present, Debbie has settled for “accountant” while Peter has veered into the nebulous “businessman” role—sure to mention that he makes a lot of money, without ever actually saying what he does. It’s on-brand for how vague “business” is and how undeserving of the salaries the people who work in it are. Plus, it’s important for the surrogate father figure in Jack’s life to be flush with cash as he swoops in to watch over Debbie’s precious spawn when her ex-husband’s girlfriend, Scarlet (Bloom), backs out of the “gig” after securing an acting job in Vancouver. Just one of many convenient and overt plot devices hurtling us down the path toward Debbie and Peter’s inevitable conclusion: happily ever after.
In between, there will be one or two “snafus” at best, including Debbie catching the eye of a highly eligible bachelor named Theo Martin (Jesse Williams), who, well look at that, happens to be an Important Editor at Debbie’s favorite publishing house, Duncan Press (which might as well be called Duncan Hines). Even more “coincidental” still: Peter has a perfectly-polished manuscript in tangible form that Debbie can just hand right over to Theo, apparently taking solicitations if the person presenting them also has a snatch he might be interested in. And yes, it goes without saying that Debbie’s bold move is going to make Peter upset about offering up a “very personal work” without his consent. But, “luckily” (read: lazily), the outcome of the book’s publication is never shown later on.
While Debbie is gallivanting around neurotically in New York with one of Peter’s exes, Minka (Zoë Chao), intended as “comic relief” as opposed to all-out annoyance, back in L.A., there is the inexplicable presence of Steve Zahn, who, one supposes is playing a character named Zen (much downgraded from Mark Mossbacher in The White Lotus). Although he declares himself to be another rich man, he essentially lives in Debbie’s backyard “gardening” a.k.a. lending the requisite “zany” flair, as that’s just about all the “comedy” Brosh McKenna can muster for the script. With the romance element, too, being a bit lacking.
Indeed, the one-note thud this entire production lands with is the only thing that makes it truly “standout.” That is to say, a shining beacon of banality, complete with the closing title cards, “And they lived happily ever after” and “just kidding marriage is hard but they had a good life.” Hopefully one filled with as few clunkers in the movie viewing realm as this attempt at teaching Rom-Com 101 to screenwriting students.
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