{"id":20117,"date":"2022-05-20T09:10:36","date_gmt":"2022-05-20T13:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.itwaslikemagic.com\/?p=20117"},"modified":"2026-04-24T16:21:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T20:21:32","slug":"a-perfect-pairing-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/a-perfect-pairing-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"‘A Perfect Pairing’ (2022) Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Lola (Victoria Justice<\/strong>) is a wine executive who quits her job after her pitch to a potential client is stolen by a co-worker. After deciding to start her own wine company, Lola travels to Australia to win over the client herself. While she\u2019s there, she volunteers to work at the station to prove herself and finds herself in a blossoming romance with the station manager, Max (Adam Demos<\/a><\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Perfect Pairing<\/em> is a by-the-book rom-com that checks off several required genre beats. It\u2019s certainly not an original idea, as we\u2019ve already seen Netflix offer up something very similar with Falling Inn Love<\/a><\/em> (also starring Demos). However, what A Perfect Pairing<\/em> has going for it is its lead actress, Victoria Justice. She brings a much-needed spark to an otherwise bland script, creating a fun and charming character in Lola. Lola is sharp and high-energy, and at times, it seems as though Demos (who plays Max) cannot match her quick wit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Demos plays Max very quietly and properly, but for the times he\u2019s bantering with Lola. He\u2019s obviously carrying around a few secrets, though they\u2019re certainly not as high-stakes as the movie makes them out to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Falling Inn Love<\/em>, the supporting characters of A Perfect Pairing<\/em> aren\u2019t terribly interesting either and seem to be placed strategically to drive the \u201cfish out of water\u201d point home. The movie’s antagonist is Calder (Craig Horner<\/a><\/strong>), Lola\u2019s boss, who is quite laughable in his attempt to be a \u201cvillain.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s the kind of guy with no redeemable qualities as a person, the kind of boss everyone runs from or slouches over their desks to pretend they\u2019re working so he doesn\u2019t rip them a new a-hole. But he\u2019s honestly not terrifying at all. Just very clich\u00e9. I swear he said something akin to, \u201cYou\u2019re not quitting. I say when someone quits!\u201d<\/em> And they dyed his hair gray, though I have no idea why, as he\u2019s clearly not even forty yet. Come on, writers\u2026 do better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Perfect Pairing\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0biggest disappointment is that, as much as I enjoyed the dialogue between the two leads, it felt like they were trying hard to manufacture some chemistry. But Max felt very one-dimensional, possibly because Demos didn\u2019t give him much personality, and their \u201cblack moment\u201d before the HEA is highly contrived and forced. Every rom-com needs conflict, but the conflict in\u00a0A Perfect Pairing\u00a0really makes no sense in the grand scheme of things. For what it\u2019s worth, Justice tries really, really hard but unfortunately comes up short.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That being said, A Perfect Pairing<\/em> is a touch above some of the more recent rom-coms Netflix has had to offer. With a likable lead, the movie is actually pretty tolerable, especially if you\u2019re spending a rainy afternoon or evening at home. Open up that bottle of wine, make some popcorn, and enjoy watching Victoria Justice boss girl her way to success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watched:<\/strong> 05.19.2022
Notable Song<\/strong>: Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rating:<\/strong><\/div>
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Perfect Pairing: A hard-driving LA wine-company executive travels to an Australian sheep station to land a major client. There she ends up working as a ranch hand and sparking with a rugged local.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[718,1],"tags":[2152,2307,1049,2308,2309,2310,2311,2312,3650,2313,1623],"class_list":["post-20117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews-p","category-reviews","tag-2152","tag-a-perfect-pairing","tag-adam-demos","tag-antonio-alvarez","tag-craig-horner","tag-emily-havea","tag-luca-asta-sardelis","tag-lucy-durack","tag-2-5-stars","tag-samantha-cain","tag-victoria-justice"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20117"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82106,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20117\/revisions\/82106"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}