Review - The Lovebirds

The Lovebirds is a film that was originally meant to premiere in cinemas. As you can see on the poster, the original release date was April 3rd but, being the smart reader you are, you probably realise that the film did not make that release date due to the small matter of a global pandemic. Like many films that were supposed to be released in the last two months, it occupied a brief limbo where the release date was TBC but eventually, Paramount sold the film to Netflix where it landed last Friday. I have spent all this time telling you about the history of how this film has been distributed because honestly, it's more interesting than the film itself.

The Lovebirds feels like it only has this plot because someone was writing a script and realised their plot wouldn't be strong enough for a serious movie.

The story is, at once, interesting and also not that interesting. It focuses on a couple, Leilani and Jibran, who are shown in their initial encounter, being a perfect couple. The film then cuts to four years later when the rose coloured tint is off. They live together but that seems to be it, visiting couples for dinner parties every weekend as a cruel reminder of how much worse off their relationship is than those of others. All of that is thrown up in the air when they accidentally hit a cyclist, have their car jacked by a "police officer" who promptly chases and runs down the cyclist and are then left alone at the scene of the crime. Knowing how bad this looks and unable to explain the situation adequately, the two flee and attempt to find the culprit themselves. This comparison will probably come up again later on but the setup reminds me a lot of Game Night. Both movies have strangely serious plots but the difference is that you feel like the plot for Game Night was strong enough that it could have worked in a movie without jokes, whereas The Lovebirds feels like it only has this plot because someone was writing a script and realised their plot wouldn't be strong enough for a serious movie, so chucked in jokes. In fairness to the film, it isn't a bad story, it's just a slightly boring mix of predictable and pointless.

I'll give the film some credit, the two leads elevate the film quite a lot. Like many others, I've been a fan of Kumail Nanjiani since his autobiographical turn in The Big Sick. He co-wrote the film with his wife and also stars and even though he's been a known quantity before, due to his work on Silicon Valley, The Big Sick showed mainstream audiences how charming and funny he can be. That's carried over here and his chemistry with Issa Rae is pretty decent. Rae is someone I know through a kind of cultural osmosis, but I've never actually seen anything she's worked on before and yeah, I like her too. Both the leads work together well but can occasionally get bogged down in what feels like moments of improvised comedy, in which they drag a joke on slightly too long. Still, they are attractive people with good comic timing, it's all you need from the leads in a comedy. The rest of the cast are solid if unremarkable too. The only two actors I really knew from anything else was Paul Sparks (formerly of the rotting boat we call House of Cards) and Anna Camp (who I know from Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt but is actually well known for Pitch Perfect). Again, it's a supporting cast who are solid but fairly forgettable, but at least the two leads keep you interested during the slower moments.

The jokes or narrative aren't strong enough to work alone but together, they come close.

Let's get into the comedy then, because a comedy film lives and dies on how funny it is. Or actually, that isn't quite the case. The way I think of comedies, they have two options to navigate between, which is makes it unique among other genres. If your film looks rubbish, it doesn't matter as long as you absolutely ace the jokes, like Airplane! or Monty Python and The Holy Grail. Those are films whose film making is hardly groundbreaking, but the comedy makes me struggle to breathe, due to out of control laughter. On the other end of the spectrum is where we find more recent comedies like 21 and 22 Jump Street and Game Night, comedies that have great jokes but also contain genuinely compelling set pieces and plots that can sustain a film in its less hilarious moments. If those films had no jokes in them, the films would still be good, but the comedy elevates them. That's a sliding scale that can work, in regards to cinematic merit versus pure comedy, and all of this has been a big lead up to say that The Lovebirds doesn't quite succeed in hitting the line on that graph. The elaborate plot isn't interesting enough to work without the jokes, but the jokes aren't quite strong enough to sustain a weak narrative. I sound overly critical I know, but ultimately, the film itself isn't particularly bad. It's certainly watchable. No, the jokes or narrative aren't strong enough to work alone but together, they come close and in a time like this, where all you want is a film to put on your TV while you drink wine, The Lovebirds is here and is under 90 minutes. Had I had a glass of wine, I probably would be more generous but there we go, I'm too much of a professional to drink on the "job".

Do I recommend The Lovebirds? Honestly, hard to say. It's no masterpiece and as a snobby little film boi, it didn't do much for me. For the average viewer though, who is just looking for something nice to pass the time, I think this film will do the job. That's why I give The Lovebirds a