The primary day at any “introduction to screenwriting” class value its salt hammers one factor residence: your story gained’t join with an viewers in case your lead characters don’t need something. Sure, sure, guidelines are made to be damaged, and experimental artwork is significant to the enlargement of any type, however I don’t assume that Meet Cute, a two-hander low-budget rom-com debuting on Peacock, had this as its objective. It’s, as an alternative, merely a failure.
Kaley Cuoco and Pete Davidson, two terrific performers who’ve accomplished and can proceed to do marvelous issues of their careers, are caught in a loop of first dates on this aggravating and perplexing characteristic from director Alex Lehmann. It’s a gimmick like Groundhog Day or Palm Springs, solely this time it’s self-imposed, by time journey. Think about Primer, however as a When Harry Met Sally-impressed sitcom, then swap out insightful dialogue for the meandering tedium of an infinite one act play. (And never an excellent one, like David Ives’s Positive Factor, to which Meet Cute owes a major debt.)
The manufacturing, hampered by taking pictures round COVID-19 protocols, tries to liven issues up by utilizing Decrease Manhattan areas, however it doesn’t have any concepts extra authentic than “an Indian restaurant!” or “the ferry!” It’s exhausting.
The primary time we meet Cuoco’s Sheila she’s obtained the hots for Davidson’s Gary, eyeing him on the finish of a bar. She comes on to him, however earlier than they break up to take the yapping to a brand new locale, she tells him she’s a time traveler. She’s making cutesy/wacky faces, so Gary rolls with it for some time. However when she begins ending his sentences, he will get confused.
Seems, she actually is a time traveller. You see, there’s a nail salon with a tanning mattress within the again that may ship you again 24 hours. Truthful sufficient. Whereas this date is the primary we within the viewers see, it’s really the seventh. She retains returning the subsequent morning as a result of … effectively, this half is somewhat unclear.
Sheila can also be a assassin, as a result of every time she goes again within the tanning mattress, she finds herself from the brand new timeline and runs that model of herself over together with her automobile. This makes for an excellent chortle, however doesn’t precisely go away one rooting for this particular person as the opposite Kaley Cuoco tries to flee in terror.
The date continues for a couple of 12 months, and it contains some chatter with Deborah S. Craig because the nail salon supervisor June, who appears fairly blasé about this lady coming by on daily basis. The truth is, June is conscious of Sheila’s ongoing cycle of visits, and their fruitlessness in serving to Sheila discover happiness, however this is mindless. If Sheila is discovering a contemporary Gary every time, June needs to be simply as clueless as he’s. (Additionally, does Sheila sleep? Unclear.)
Ultimately, issues begin to go south, as a result of Sheila finds a technique to journey even additional again in time in an try to “repair” the upsetting incidents from Gary’s youth. His father was by no means round to play ball with him, so a mysterious uncle (Cuoco in a pretend mustache) exhibits up with a mitt. She additionally drops by throughout Gary’s awkward teen years as a Russian pizza supply woman to liberate him from virginity. When the newest Gary—whose simpler path in life has turned him right into a little bit of a tech douche—learns about this time-warp tinkering he will get offended. Ultimately he shouts that he can’t do that anymore. Do what anymore? That is all model new to him for those who comply with the logic of this story!
Clearly, some viewers members (raises hand) get extra hung up on guidelines than others. Rian Johnson’s Looper and its dismissal about making sense of time journey (“we’re gonna’ be right here all day making diagrams with straws”) is nice, however you want a modicum of logic to make the hook work, and Meet Cute merely doesn’t have it.
This might be extra forgivable if the scene work have been wonderful. Although these actors are recreation, the script is pedestrian. Davidson is his usually low-key charming self, as seen within the fairly good The King Of Staten Island and the even higher Massive Time Adolescence (streaming on Hulu proper now for those who’ve missed it), and hanging out with him and Cuoco in full daffy mode borders on charming. However there aren’t any intelligent moments, only a parade of clichés you’ve seen in lots of different indie romances.
In 2019 Alex Lehmann launched one other two-hander, the way more profitable Paddleton with Ray Romano and Mark Duplass. It, too, is generally simply two individuals speaking, however there’s a depth and humanity that’s absent right here. Meet Cute has all of the unoriginality of a forgettable low-budget image—and eye-rolling dialogue like making Kaley Cuoco say “all of the issues!”—plus a central premise that simply doesn’t work. Don’t really feel dangerous for those who stand this one up.