‘Your Place or Mine’ movie review: A promising premise that never takes off

A still from ‘Your Place or Mine’
| Photo Credit: Netflix

Netflix’s latest rom-com sets out on a promising premise with Aline Brosh McKenna (known for writing movies like 27 Dresses and The Devil Wears Prada) spearheading it. 

After one hook-up in 2003, Debbie (Reese Witherspoon) and Peter (Ashton Kutcher) have managed to remain friends for over twenty years; they claim to share everything with each other, but the people in their lives seem to disagree.

Debbie (Reese Witherspoon), an accountant and a single mother to Jack (Wesley Kimmel) spends her days in a little cottage in Los Angeles pre-occupied with her son’s allergies, while Peter (Ashton Kutcher), an easy-going rich New Yorker who struggles with long-term relationships spends time in an apartment (sans colour) overlooking the city’s skyline. 

After getting ditched by her babysitter last minute, Peter offers to fly down to LA and babysit Jack in her cottage, while opening his house for Debbie to live in (who is pursuing a week-long training course). In the process, they open their lives to each other and the audience. 

Debbie, who had dreams of becoming an editor at a publishing house, walks the path of pessimism and trudges at a desk working with numbers in order to reason with logic. Meanwhile, Peter, who has always wanted to be an author, is stuck struggling with brands and banks. However, their dreams hold a magnetic pull over them to this day; discovering each other’s secrets sets them on a mission to make each other’s dreams come true.

The leads of the film spend most of their time in two different cities and the split screen plays spoilsport with the romantic tension. In a film that is supposed to be about love and romance, the audience is never given a chance to gauge the leads’ chemistry. While Witherspoon and Kutcher fit their parts, and the film touches upon famous stereotypes (including an airport scene in the climax), it never really takes off. 

Not to mention, boxing the female lead as a neurotic mother who loves organising, and the male lead as a rich commitment-phobic playboy living in a New York apartment dulls the leftover charm of the movie. However, Steve Zahn as Zen, the IT guy who tends to Debbie’s garden in an attempt to win her over, makes for joyous comedic relief in a film rife with robotic sentiments.

Watching the movie made me want to rewatch expertly-done Love, Rosie, the Sam Claflin and Lily Collins-starrer that works with a similar storyline.

Your Place or Mine is currently streaming on Netflix