The Lovebirds has a lot to live up to. From director Michael Showalter, it’s the long awaited follow-up to his 2017 film The Big Sick, a sweet but edgily funny romantic comedy that boldly had it’s leading lady in a coma for most of the film. Unfortunately, there’s nothing comparatively fresh or bracing about his new Netflix comedy, but it does have another ace up it’s sleeve in Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani - two actors at the top of their comedic game.
Ironically, the lovebirds of the movie spend much of the movie quite out of love. While we get a brief look at the unexpected meet cute of Jibran (Nanjiani) and Leilani (Rae), the cracks start to appear four years into their relationship, when both come to the realisation that they might be incompatible. Yet, just before they break up, things take an even darker turn when they are carjacked by a man who murders a cyclist using their car and disappears to let them take the fall.
As our duo try to elude the police and get to the bottom of the mystery (they decide that their races may disadvantage their alibi), Aaron Adams and Brendan Gall’s story closely follows in the footsteps of other films about ordinary people thrust unwittingly into a world of crime (see Date NightandThe Spy Who Dumped Me). That means threatening yet quirky supporting characters, implausible story developments, and shit predictably hitting the fan. In a year that saw Queen & Slim effortlessly tackle similar topics, the lack of adventure here feels particularly noticeable.
If the plot is forgettable, the comedy it services at least truly delivers, and much of this can be laid at the feet of Rae and Nanjiani. Even in a hilarious early sequence where they bicker over their differences - he is a pretentious documentary maker who takes his craft too seriously, while she is a reality-show obsessive who can’t tear herself away from Instagram - the chemistry with which they built their relationship always feels believable. Both have a gift for using a funny facial expression or improvised line to liven up a limp scene (their expressions of horror during an early murder scene make it unexpectedly funny). This means that, though the laugh rate does decline as the film heads towards its predictable finish, their clever interplay ultimately saves it from mediocrity.
An otherwise by the numbers crime comedy is elevated by the superb comic talents of Rae and Nanjiani, who keep you laughing when the story loses its wings.
“WhatSex and the City would do is have four individual story lines and they would come in and out. I don’t think we’ll ever follow Kelli’s dating story, you know what I’m saying? I don’t think we’ll follow a Tiffany and [her husband] Derek [Wade Allain-Marcus] life story. For us, that’s never going to be a thing. How we use [Kelli and Tiffany] are as sounding boards and other POVs that our two main characters – and certainly Issa – are bouncing things off of. There’s no conservative effort to make all of them be an ensemble piece.“–Insecure showrunner Prentice Penny
Despite a wealth of formidable contenders, the Academy Awards once again nominated zero women for Best Director, and nominations presenter Issa Rae noticed immediately. “Congratulations to those men,” she said.
The total female shutout follows a similar result at the Golden Globes — even though a number of acclaimed 2019 films were directed by women, including Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women,” Lulu Wang’s “The Farewell,” Lorene Scafaria’s “Hustlers,” Marielle Heller’s “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” Céline Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” and Mati Diop’s “Atlantics.”
Issa Rae and Moana Luu attend the Aliette fashion show during February 2020 - New York Fashion Week: The Shows at Gallery II at Spring Studios on February 12, 2020 in New York City
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