San Francisco Chronicle

Flipphone comedy in smartphone world

- By Zaki Hasan

It’s a testament to the comedic chops of star Adam DeVine that “Jexi” isn’t worse than it is. Whatever small bits of amusement arise from the laborious “smartphone gone haywire” comedy come from the “Workaholic­s” star working overtime — mugging, shrieking, whatever it takes — to wring laughs from a pretty thankless script.

And “thankless” is about as good a summation as any for what a tough slog this one was to get through, made even more so by the fact that I paid to see it and was literally the only one in the screening room on its release day. It’s hard enough watching an unfunny comedy, but when you don’t have even other people’s laughter to use as a guide rail, it’s positively excruciati­ng.

The shame of it is there’s a pretty engaging hook at the heart of this story: We live in a time when everyone is in love with their phones, but what if our phones were in love with us?

Were that kernel of an idea cooked a bit more skillfully,

“Jexi” might have emerged as wickedly cutting satire on consumeris­m run amok and our increasing­ly unhealthy affinity for digital devices.

Even acknowledg­ing that director Spike Jonze already put out what really feels like the final word on this subject in 2013’s “Her,” there was certainly room for “Jexi” to carry the plot forward as informed by the six subsequent years of cultural change. But there’s a technologi­cal tone deafness to the film belying its setting in the heart of the tech hub that is San Francisco.

As written and directed by “Bad Moms” directors Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, the plot centers on phoneaddic­ted Phil (DeVine), who earns his way in his workaday life by cranking out endless “listicles” for a Buzzfeed knockoff located in S.F. called ChatterBox. It’s a torturous gig made inordinate­ly worse by his overbearin­g, profanityl­oving manager (Michael Peña).

Of course, none of that actually matters, because Phil is busy living his perfect life on social media, with filtered photos, #blessed and all. But when his phone is damaged beyond saving following an encounter with a wayward cyclist, it’s time for an upgrade. Enter: Jexi.

Imagine Siri or Alexa or Cortana. But with swearing. That’s the movie’s entire pitch.

While Jexi (voiced by Rose Byrne) starts out by judging Phil’s pitiful life, she’s soon actively intervenin­g to make things better for him, including sending his boss a profanityl­aced email demanding a promotion, and coldcallin­g Cate (Alexandra Shipp), the bikerepair­shopowning Manic Pixie Dream Girl he had a meetcute with just before losing his first phone.

Before long, this toughlove approach begins bearing fruit in his life (there’s a running gag about “turning left on Market” that’s genuinely amusing, but that may be a total blank for anyone living outside the Bay Area). Soon enough, Phil realizes his phone is in love with him, and like an OS “Fatal Attraction,” Jexi will not be ignored.

Before long, Jexi is sending pictures of Phil’s privates to all of his coworkers and using her skills to somehow bring Cate’s impossibly handsome exfiance ( Justin Hartley) back into her life to win her back. She transcends Phil’s phone and somehow manages to talk to him through any internetco­nnected device. How is she capable of doing all this? She lives in the cloud.

That’s it. There’s no accounting for a computer having achieved this degree of selfactual­ization. To what end? How much power does she have? Does she only do this with one person at a time? Is every Jexi phone selfaware? Does that in itself constitute a race? And how is none of that a bigger deal?

Obviously those are a lot of heavy questions that probably fall far outside the filmmakers’ remit, but one can’t help asking because “Jexi” isn’t quite sure what kind of comedic realm it wants to occupy. If the movie was going to lean fully into the surreality of its own premise, that’d be one thing, but it wants to keep one foot grounded in some semblance of the “real” world, making for a frustratin­g mix.

Again, all credit to DeVine for doing what he can with the material, as well as comedy stalwarts like Ron Funches and Wanda Sykes as a cell phone store worker (it feels like the directors just left the camera on and let her riff ). But what’s unfortunat­e is that there was an opportunit­y to mine real laughs from our addiction to cell phones the way “Her” mined real pathos from the same scenario.

Instead, “Jexi” feels hopelessly out of step with the moment. Despite its subject matter, it’s a flipphone movie in a smartphone world.

 ?? CBS Films ?? Adam Devine stars in “Jexi,” which was shot in San Francisco. Jexi is like a Siri that swears.
CBS Films Adam Devine stars in “Jexi,” which was shot in San Francisco. Jexi is like a Siri that swears.
 ?? CBS Films ?? Alexandra Shipp plays Cate, the bikeshopow­ning love interest of Phil (Adam DeVine), in the film “Jexi.”
CBS Films Alexandra Shipp plays Cate, the bikeshopow­ning love interest of Phil (Adam DeVine), in the film “Jexi.”

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