A flat time travel romantic comedy
GIVEN the successes of the 1993 classic “Groundhog Day” and, more recently, “Palm Springs” (2020), it seems almost impossible to mess up the ingenious time-loop romance.
For a film that literally repeats the same day and scenes, all one needs to create a masterpiece are two ultra-talented leads and a great writing team.
While “Meet Cute” does get big marks for the great premise and material, sadly, the same cannot be said about the two leads — Kaley Cuoco and Pete Davidson.
I am a huge fan of both, as “The Big Bang Theory” is one of my favourite sitcoms of all time, and Davidson’s dark humour just resonates with me.
But the two, Cuoco and Davidson, did not really have chemistry in the film. Their delivery left a lot to be desired. Cuoco plays a Manhattan native by the name of Sheila, who is at her wits’ end when it comes to life, love and everything in-between.
She is on the cusp of ending it all, when she meets Davidson’s Gary character, and the two share one of the best first dates of her entire life.
The next morning, she discovers a time machine at her favourite nail salon and decides to use it first to relive her meeting with Gary and then later to try to fix him into becoming the perfect boyfriend.
It is a cycle that goes on for more than 365 days as the two bond over their shared childhood and adult trauma, and try to make sense of a lot of things.
In terms of performance, Cuoco and Davidson do not really have the chops, charm and chemistry of their predecessors in movies like “Groundhog Day” (Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell) and “Palm Springs” (Andy Samberg and Cristin Miliot).
Do not get me wrong, the material is on point and I really got the sense of what Noga Pnueli, the writer, was trying to put across. Rather than go the straightforward rom-com route, Pnueli chose to take the darker route and tackle issues like mental disorder.
The film’s leads suffer from some unspecified mental disorder and this is what makes the two gravitate towards each other.The problem is that Cuoco and Davidson do not really have the charm and wit to mix and blend such big and important issues with comedy.
On the part of Pnueli and director Alex Lehmann, I understand the temptation to cast Davidson, given the fact that the 28-year-old is very open about his own struggles with mental health, but that is where it stops. However, Davidson is neither charming nor funny in his performance. Cuoco, for all her talents, is not a really good fit.
The tone of the film is all over the place, with the humour ranging from dry to cringeworthy throughout the movie.
Still, the writing team does a great job in the third act and ties the storyline in a nice little bow. This is the film’s one redeeming quality, and, in the end, makes it watchable.