Your Place or Mine review

The appeal to give Your Place or Mine a chance is obvious. Ashton Kutcher and Reese Witherspoon starring in a romcom should be all the necessary ingredients for a sweet, charming and very funny film.

Instead, it’s so comprehensively bad with jokes that die a million little deaths and a script that constantly strives to defy logic. It’s too much for the charms of Kutcher and Witherspoon to overcome.

Director/screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna seems like she unearthed this rom com from a 90s time capsule. One that wasn’t properly sealed and is especially moldy.

It seems like McKenna envisioned a breezy Sleepless in Seattle update yet churned out a dull, uninspired slog of a film that desperately needed a jolt from that little coffee manufacturer in Seattle to liven it up.

Debbie (Witherspoon, The Morning Show) and Peter (Kutcher, The Ranch) hooked up once 20 years ago, but have been best friends ever since.

They communicate daily despite the time zone difference — Peter is in New York while Debbie is in Los Angeles — complete with Sleepless in Seattle homage split screen.

Debbie is a helicopter smothering style parent to her son, Jack (Wesley Kimmel — yep, Jimmy’s nephew) terrified that something could happen to her son, who’s got a slew of allergies yet is otherwise perfectly healthy.

Peter is a carefree contractor with no strings or obligations. That frees him up to help Debbie out when Jack’s babysitter bails so she can attend a class in New York. Their original plan was for Debbie to visit Peter for the week, but now they’re just house swapping.

That’s a big ask for Debbie who likes to play it safe and stay strictly within her established lanes. Ironically, playing it safe could apply to the film as well as it never has anything that shakes it out of its malaise.

This leads to one of the film’s big problems — the lack of on-screen interaction between Kutcher and Witherspoon. Seemingly the hook for the film is them playing off each other and their infectious chemistry carrying it through any rough patches.

It also starts raising questions about the closeness of this 20-year friendship as some basic things that would come up in daily conversations have somehow gone unmentioned.

Playing romantic lead keep away isn’t the best approach as their standalone storylines just aren’t that interesting.

Peter falls into surrogate dad mode pretty quickly for Jack, who’s struggling to make friends in school. Debbie’s class subplot never really materializes. She discovers a book Peter wrote and gets focused on getting it published with the help of famed book editor Theo Martin (Jesse Williams, Grey’s Anatomy).

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The supporting characters are more quirky add-ons to help flesh out the cast, but they come off like caricatures instead of remotely believable characters.

Steve Zahn is the wacky next-door neighbor tending Debbie’s garden. Tig Notaro is Debbie’s fellow parent friend who’s defining personality trait is she chain drinks coffee. Notaro has a dry sense of humor, but this role fails to give her much of anything interesting to do.

Zoe Chao has a confusing role as one of Peter’s random hookups who bizarrely befriends Debbie. Chao brings some very necessary energy to the film even if it makes no sense that she would strike up such a fast bond and be so invested in the life of a stranger.

Despite a nearly two-hour run time, the final act still manages to feel rushed though not without diving headfirst into genre cliche locations.

Of course, the big fight/reconciliation has to take place in an airport. Just once I’d love to see security round up this disruptive couple from making a scene and the big moment play out in the security office.

Kutcher and Witherspoon are game to make this work, but there’s not enough substance to justify their efforts. This is an ideal doing the laundry, cleaning the kitchen style Netflix movie. Even while semi-distracted you’re not gonna miss much beyond the dashed potential of what could have been with this film.

Rating: 4 out of 10

Photo Credit: Netflix