Someone Great (92 minutes)
The sudden urge to party, to look your best, to cry on the subway, to lash out at your friends, to listen to sad songs-- it’s all here.
In so many ways Someone Great (2019) feels like it was written as an extended music video for Lorde’s song “Supercut”. The song opens the movie with a cleverish social media montage that serves as our surface-level background of the main characters. Because what is social media if not a fairytale slideshow of someone’s life? Someone Great is The 90-Minute Movie’s first romcom post (unintentionally) and while it serves up the cheese, structure, and charming lead we’ve come to expect, it also offers a little plot flare that makes it special.
Quick Plot Overview! The movie centers on Jenny (Gina Rodriguez) who, upon accepting a dream job with Rolling Stone across the country in San Francisco, is dumped by her boyfriend of 9 years, Nate (LaKeith Stanfield). In an attempt to get over it--and to celebrate her new life-- Jenny recruits her two best friends Erin (DeWanda Wise) and Blair (Brittany Snow) for a day of debauchery in pre-pandemic New York City. They run into a wide cast of characters (Rosario Dawson, RuPaul, and Michelle Bateau to name a few) along the way as they search for VIP tickets to a music festival.
I’ve written this again and again, but a 90-minute movie doesn’t need to completely break the mold to be enjoyable or even good. Someone Great checks a lot of these boxes. I love movies that take place on a single day/night and the best ones tend to be set in New York City. Check! Other favorites include After Hours and The Night Before (both 90-minute movies I will definitely have to cover in the future). And romcoms continue to be favorites for all of us because there is comfort in the formula--we know we won’t be devastated in the end--but there is still excitement in the journey of how we get to the end of the story. (And also a high probability of a getting ready montage.) Check, check!
For Someone Great, writer/director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, tweaks our beloved romcom format by making it about finding yourself after a break-up, rather than finding the love of your life. What I think makes this movie so great is that she does this without shitting all over love. The movie is still a celebration of love and relationships, executed in a really beautiful way through flashbacks. As Jenny and her friends venture around the city, Jenny is struck by specific memories at specific locations. A stoop transports her back to a big argument with Nate. A bodega sends her to a happy moment they shared together in the street. For anyone who has been through a breakup (i.e. most of us) these moments feel very, very real. The pain is recognizable. The inability to separate a place or moment from the person you love/d is so particular I really wish we had a word for it in the English language.
Jenny’s two friends, Erin and Blair, also serve the “not shitting on love” narrative by being Jenny’s perfect foils. Erin is in love and can’t express herself. Blair is in a loveless relationship and feels a little trapped. Love has many different faces. And what’s even better is that their friendships are not tied to their romantic statuses. I really enjoyed how they supported each other and their relationships. The tropes of the best friends who selfishly want you to be single or demand you stay in a relationship are nowhere to be found. That said, their friendships are super duper saccharine which feels almost unbelievable. But isn’t that what romcoms are for? To make us feel bad about our own relationships (I kid, I kid… or do I?) The script is weak at times but the chemistry between our three leads is undeniable and makes this a super fun and easy movie to watch. Wise and Snow are perfectly cast and avoid falling into any trope pitfalls. What this movie lacks in strength of story, more than makes up for it in likeability. Simply-- watching Someone Great feels like you’re with your friends and you just want the best for them.
Like any great movie or show set in New York City, the city is its own character, pulsating in every scene. The movie was released in 2019, just before the pandemic, and it’s almost painful to see it depicted in all its neon, club-hopping, maskless, girl-boss glory. She (yes NYC is a she) looks stunning in every shot -- even when they catch her in the subway. The apartments are covetable (as they should be for a romcom) and are hysterically strewn with “Do What You Love” and “Feminist” artwork, throw pillows, mugs, and neon signs. These apartments are where Nasty Gal went to die. (RIP Nasty Gal, 2006-2016) I’m certain if you showed this movie to Gen-Z they’d collectively cringe.
The most interesting choice Robinson makes for the movie is to not have Nate appear in real-time-- except for the near end where we only see his face in a crowd. Everything having to do with Nate and his relationship with Jenny is served up in a flashback. The night they first meet, their first fight, the first I love you all come back to Jenny in hazy, darkened shots. We only know Nate as Jenny does for better and for worse. The mourning period after a breakup is chaotic as hell and this movie manages to squeeze it all into 92 minutes. The sudden urge to party, to look your best, to cry on the subway, to lash out at your friends, to listen to sad songs-- it’s all here.
In the end, David Sims from The Atlantic put it best in his review, saying that it is “a movie that's best experienced while lazing on the couch, preferably on the morning after a wild night out.” It’s comfortable but fresh. Looks amazing. Makes you laugh. And the soundtrack is fantastic. Oh, I just got it… this movie is basically a rebound. Go out, have fun together, but don’t get too attached.
Sources:
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/someone-great-2019
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/someone_great
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/someone-great-review-1202959/