Your Place or Mine ☆

Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Ashton Kutcher, Jesse Williams, Zoe Chao,
Wesley Kimmel,
Tig Notaro, and Steve Zahn

Written and directed by: Aline Brosh McKenna

Tagline: Two lives. Two cities. One last chance.

he interweb has been having a field day making fun of Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher’s awkward red carpet photos from the Your Place or Mine premiere, likening their appearance to that of exes trying their best to be civil while attending their child’s PTA meeting or siblings being forced to take a family photo by their mum.

Turns out there’s a lot more awkwardness where that came from, because the entire film is pretty much just a showcase of the lack of chemistry between the pair.

It is bewildering that someone thought it would be a good idea to cast these two actors as the leads in a romcom. And it’s even more perplexing that someone decided keeping them in separate locations for almost the entirety of the film – minus, what, three scenes? – would be a solid plan. That’s the conceit of the movie though: two best friends who live on opposite sides of the country switch homes for a week so that one of them – Witherspoon’s Debbie – can complete a degree, while the other – Kutcher’s Peter – takes care of the former’s son (Wesley Kimmel).

It’s a premise that could have potentially worked if the attraction between the pair was palpable, if the script was sharper, and if the movie was delivering something inventive while subverting expectations. None of that, sadly, is true in the case of Your Place or Mine. And Aline Brosh McKenna’s script is largely to blame. The whole thing is tired and unfunny, often exasperatingly ridiculous, and always painfully predictable.

All of which is such a shame given the acting talent the filmmaker has managed to rope in for her big screen directorial debut. You’ve got the likes of Steve Zahn and Jesse Williams wasted in thankless roles as potential love interests for Debbie; the lovely Rachel Bloom and Vella Lovell – McKenna’s Crazy Ex cohorts – showing up for brief blink-and-you’ll-miss-them cameos; and Tig Notaro and Zoe Chao being effortlessly charming despite their respective characters’ lack of development and depth.

Your Place or Mine is, ultimately, just a reminder of the fact that there have been so many dull romcoms already that if you want a project in this genre to be impressive, compelling, or even just enjoyable, you need to do something different with the concept, or at the very least create a central relationship that feels authentic and a script that delivers chuckles. Movies like Always Be My Maybe and I Want You Back have done just that quite recently. There really is no excuse for hackneyed, formulaic triteness anymore.

Rating system: *Not on your life * ½ If you really must waste your time ** Hardly worth the bother ** ½ Okay for a slow afternoon only *** Good enough for a look see *** ½ Recommended viewing **** Don’t miss it **** ½ Almost perfect ***** Perfection