#silicon valley
silicon valley is baiscally six seasons of the social network. gays getting screwed over by their nerd friends
It’s time to split
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.
★★★
I joked to @dineshgilfoyle I was going to make a chart of which Silicon Valley ships have been written, then I accidentally made a chart of which Silicon Valley ships have been written. Whoops. This is only counting fic on AO3 and includes all the ship tags on a fic; the thickness of the line between each pair of names is proportional to how many fics for that pairing are on AO3, unless there was just a single fic in which case it’s a dashed line instead. If ships were tagged “A and B” or “A & B” I didn’t include them, which I think knocked out the only Richard/Monica fic in the whole fandom.
Yes, there probably is something more productive I could be doing with my time, thank you for wondering.
you are my hero
Fantastic work!!! And come on we all know obsessing over Silicon Valley is a perfect way to spend one’s time.
Big Head/Jared sounds like two quiet sweet mice guys in love…
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For Anxy Illustration by Jao San Pedro Extreme expectations mean extreme stress for the teenagers trying to graduate from California’s elite schools.
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