‘Someone Great’ (2019) Review

Someone Great Synopsis: After a devastating break up on the eve of her cross-country move, Jenny enjoys one last NYC adventure with her two best pals.

When Jenny (Gina Rodriguez) lands her dream job in San Francisco, she and her boyfriend of nine years, Nate (Lakeith Stanfield), decide to call it quits. Devastated, Jenny spends the day after her break up with her best friends, Erin (DeWanda Wise) and Blair (Brittany Snow), as they track down various drugs and passes to an exclusive party happening that evening in the city. Along the way, all three women make some life-changing decisions and finally accept that it’s time to grow up and move on to the next phase of their lives.

Someone Great has been marketed as the anti-rom com, and I suppose there is definitely an argument to be made for that. The movie starts with the aftermath of Jenny and Nate’s break up, and we only get small glimpses into their relationship through strategically placed flashbacks from Jenny’s point of view. We’re meant to connect to Jenny and Nate’s journey emotionally.

While some of the flashbacks shown in Someone Great are pretty sentimental while maintaining a sense of realism, we already know the outcome of their relationship by this point, so for me, it was difficult to let myself care too much about what happened to them. There’s the question of whether or not they’ll get back together before the credits run, but it doesn’t take a genius to see this movie is less about romance and more about the strength of friendships and becoming adults.

Jenny is dealing with her breakup but is also about to move across the country to work for Rolling Stone, which is a massive step for her writing career. Erin is an emotionally guarded smartass (I use that term affectionately), struggling to admit her deeper feelings for her girlfriend. Blair is an uptight, do-gooder who is coming to terms with the fact that she is attracted to Jenny’s old college crush, Matt (Peter Vack), although she has a bland, long-term boyfriend. All three characters are stereotypes of characters we’ve seen a hundred times before, but the actresses salvage this by giving some genuine, heartfelt performances.

Despite being an anti-rom com, there are plenty of rom-com tropes in Someone Great, one of which is that at-all-too-familiar musical montage of the three women dancing and changing clothes before venturing out to their party. Certain songs trigger Jenny’s memories of Nate, and of course, we get that yearning glance across a crowded dance floor as our young lovers come to terms with what’s happened to their relationship.

One thing I noticed and could hardly understand was that all three women were constantly drinking, smoking weed, or taking molly throughout the day, and yet somehow, they were all sober and still on their feet by the end of the night. Maybe it shows my age too much, but how is this possible?

In any case, Rodriguez, Wise, and Snow have plenty of chemistry to make you believe they’ve all been friends since college. There is a familiarity there that helps propel the movie. Rodriguez and Stanfield also have some nice chemistry, but I’m starting to think Stanfield would have chemistry with a potted plant with the right script. Rosario Dawson has a brief cameo as Nate’s insufferable cousin, Hannah, but I wasn’t sure what the point was as she doesn’t show up again, nor has she had any real effect on the story.

The plot of Someone Great is not overly complicated, but the script balances the humor with the sentimental moments. I have to admit that the letter Jenny wrote to Nate towards the end was worth watching the rest of the movie for. Ultimately, this is a movie about loving your friends and yourself while not needing a man to define who you are. A bonus is that it has a pretty killer soundtrack as well.

Watched: 04/19/2019
Notable Song: Supercut by Lorde