Where I Watched it: Netflix

English Audio Description provided by: Descriptive Video Works

Narrated By Clement Chow

Recently, I mentioned that I enjoy Gabrielle union. In my 40 Favorite Actors list, I had some honorable mentions, and Union was there. What I was going off was the idea that a certain person has the ability to draw me into a film, and how strong that pull is. Does it need to be combined with anyone else?

Here, Union does have the pleasure of sharing the screen with Gina Torres, who I also adore, but this is Union’s film. Here we get her playing younger than her age, which kudos to her, but also older than her romantic love interest, who is age appropriate in so much that he’s an adult, but he’s also the son of Torres… her boss.

The funny thing about this equation is that Torres is actually only 4 years older than Union in real life, so they really should be playing the same age, but based on how the film ends I’m just guessing Union isn’t in her 50’s. Plus, the audio description does mention the age her ex (who pops up) looks like, and he’s 40 something.

I’m in the weeds, but I also can’t just tell you the ending. I can tell you that I hate the title to this film. It’s so generically awful that I have to research and look up this film to remember the title. How many films out there have had “The perfect” and then something after that.

I also would love to believe that two people can bond romantically over really specific black and white silent film, but in this day and age, I’m just happy when someone has seen Casablanca. The thing about Union is that she is good even when the material is not, which sadly is more than it should be. As she showed recently on her season long run on Truth Be Told, she’s a much better actress than she’s credited for, and the few awards she was recognized with for her work in last year’s A24 Oscar contender The inspection helped to move that notion along.

This seems to be the kind of film Netflix wants to vomit out, and I just hope union got paid. It’s just decent enough to not suck, but also not good enough to be memorable.

The audio description has fun with the idea of defaulting. Frequently, films choose to only mention when a character is not white. Like, being black is a superpower worth noting. So, since this seems to be the industry standard, in a film with an almost entirely black cast, we are reminded everyone is black. I really can’t think of a film full of white people that went out of its way to make sure we knew everyone was white.

On top of that, I’m not sure the narrators voice is appropriate for the film. He’s not what I would ahve picked. He’s great for family friendly fare, but a romantic drama with some sexy moments? No. We can get into the whole “sounds” like a certain race debate, because i can’t really know if someone’s voice matches a race. However, I would hope that some representation was given a modicum of thought in this process. I think the target demo would have much preferred say the silky deep baritone of Dennis Haysbert to our narrator who reminded me a bit of Dan levy.

It’s just another Netflix romcom, it just stars Gabrielle Union.

Final Grade: B-