Your Place or Mine, Movie Review

Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher’s chemistry is dramatically absent in Your Place Or Mine.

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Reese Witherspoon and romantic comedies used to be a match made in heaven. But did you know her last one was back in 2017? It was called Home Again and no one remembers it. So, it’s safe to say they have missed each other and deep down we have, too. Or, at least we thought we did. This long-awaited reunion occurs in Netflix’s Your Place or Mine and it’s disastrous. Phone conversations, FaceTime, and split screens do not really exude those warm, fuzzy feelings while watching our two destined to be together characters fall in love and live happily ever after. Then, to add insult to injury, Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher’s chemistry is dramatically absent. It’s miscasting in all its grandeur.

What started out as just a hookup in 2003, Debbie (Witherspoon) and Peter (Kutcher) have now been best friends for twenty years. Living in L.A., Debbie is sensible and practical, and very protective of her teenage son, Jack (Wesley Kimmel), who’s allergic to everything. She is close to getting her degree in a field that’s not quite what she envisioned back in the day. Being a book editor was the dream, but that’s long gone now. Meanwhile, Peter, who loves constant change, lives in New York though isn’t doing what he imagined, either. He’s a writer who has yet to share his writing with the world. Still, he is successful at his consulting gig, but a failure when it comes to relationships. None of them last more than six months.

His friendship with Debbie is the only mainstay in his life. They tell each other everything and there’s nothing they wouldn’t do for one another. That’s why Peter doesn’t hesitate in volunteering to fly to L.A. to look after Jack while Debbie travels to New York to finish some program that will complete the final stage in getting her degree. Total opposites are swapping lives to finally see what they have been blind to for far too long.

In her feature directorial debut, writer Aline Brosh McKenna (Cruella, The Devil Wears Prada, 27 Dresses) can’t squeeze an ounce of romance or humor out from her poorly framed plot that feels extremely empty on that rom-com enchantment. She keeps Witherspoon and Kutcher apart for most of the movie, but even in the few scenes they do share – there’s not the slightest of sparks between the two. And almost all of the side characters in Your Place or Mine are either useless or obnoxious. Sadly, I’m including Steve Zahn who plays Debbie’s neighbor/gardener who creepily wanders around in her yard all day with the hope he catches her eye.

Your Place or Mine should have been a welcome return for Witherspoon to the darling genre she once dominated. However, there’s way too many mounting problems to overcome for this to be anything but regretful. She should have simply stayed away for a little while longer.

Brandon Vick is a member of The Music City Film Critics’ Association and the Southeastern Film Critics Association, the resident film critic of the SoBros Network, and the star of The Vick’s Flicks Podcast. Follow him on Twitter @SirBrandonV and be sure to search #VicksFlicks for all of his latest movie reviews.

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