Someone Great (2019)

There's something about Gina Rodriguez that I don't like. It's not her fault, it's just that she reminds me of a person I know and don't like much and that person basically ruined Gina for me. She is a great actress though — I loved her in Jane the Virgin — so, despite me not being the biggest fan of romantic comedies and the trailer basically screaming "I'm a terrible movie", I checked out Netflix's newest original film, Someone Great. 

Set in New York, the story focuses on Jenny (Gina Rodriguez), a nearly 30-year-old music journalist who has just landed her dream job as a writer for Rolling Stone magazine in San Francisco. Not even contemplating the idea of a long distance relationship, her boyfriend of nine years, Nate (Lakeith Stanfield), breaks up with her. To nurse her broken heart, she decides to have one last, outrageous night in New York City with her two best friends, Erin (DeWanda Wise) and Blair (Brittany Snow).

Someone Great isn't heavy plotted — the three friends trying to get tickets for a concert is all the plot the film has — but it's not much of a problem as it is a "moving on" story. The fact that the premise of the story makes no sense whatsoever — why would Rolling Stone even send her in San Francisco? They don't even have offices there! —, that there are many other holes along the way, and that the outcome is predictable and the overall story far from being engaging and entertaining definitely is.

It's not like director and writer Jennifer Kaytin Robinson put more thought into the characters though. In fact, for a film that relies rather on its characters than its plot, the characters are tremendously thin — no depth, no development, nothing. We spend an hour and a half with Jenny and her two best friends and yet we don't really know anything about them. Only that Jenny is miserable by the end of her relationship — she is supposed to be very passionate about music, hence the job of her dreams, but this passion of hers never comes through. All she seems to care about is to get back with Nate —, that Erin has commitment issues, and that Blair is uptight, and that they do love drink spirits and smoke weed all day long — seriously, these three do nothing other than that and at the end of the day, literally, they are as fresh as they were in the morning. Also, they don't act like normal human beings but like they were celebrities.

There are also some random strangers the three girls meet that made me feel as if I missed something — I'm specifically talking about Rosario Dawson's character, Hannah. Who is this woman? An old friend? One of Nate's ex-girlfriends? Nate's sister, maybe? All we sense is that Jenny doesn't particularly like her and yet she feels the need to tell her about her break-up with Nate. And why does Erin's girlfriend acts and talks like a psychologist when she clearly is not one?

Netflix

Someone Great also has some positive aspects though. While the comedy is nowhere to be found — there are no big laughs, no small laughs. I only chucked once —, the drama works quite well as the flashbacks to Jenny and Nate's relationship, which are romantic and serious, feel genuine, and really sweet and tender — it also helps that Rodriguez and Stanfield have great chemistry and that they are adorable together. The cinematography is also quite beautiful, and the soundtrack is incredible. The performances are also pretty good, especially Gina Rodriguez's who manages to give her thin character some depth and make her likeable, despite the unlikable character.