Today: Mar 28, 2024

Movie Review: Romcom ‘Your Place or Mine’ is a hot mess

Ali Fernand Features Editor

Your Place or Mine is a romantic comedy that came out this month. It stars Reese Witherspoon of “Legally Blonde” fame as Debbie and Ashton Kutcher from “That ‘70s Show” as Peter. Going into this movie, I am a big fan of Reese Witherspoon. I’ve been a fan of Reese Witherspoon’s movies. Legally Blonde is an iconic female empowerment movie. To be completely honest, I have never watched any movie or show starring Ashton Kutcher before.  

My opinion on romcoms is usually negative. I find a lot of them not romantic or funny despite the name. I also feel like a lot of them get into a creepy territory involving obsessiveness or stalking. Though this movie is quite corny, I felt that it fulfilled everything a romcom should be. I’m thinking this movie was made for middle aged people considering the casting, so this was a movie that I watched with my dad and my stepmom. Watching this movie with them gave me a better experience than I would have had by myself.  

The plot is about two best friends Debbie and Peter. They have been friends for 20 years after having a rather spicy encounter one night when they were younger. Nothing ever progressed after that one night, but they became very close. They got each other through difficult times such as death, divorce, addiction and being a single parent. 

During the beginning of the movie, Debbie is living in Los Angeles where both are from, and Peter is living in New York City. The movie made it difficult to figure out what their occupations were, but it was irrelevant to the plot, so I let it slide. Peter lives in this beautiful penthouse with a perfect view of what I assume is the Brooklyn Bridge. He lives very lavishly with younger girlfriends and works for a big company. Debbie is living a modest life as a single mother. She has a cottage-like house and works for the school. I honestly don’t know what she does, the movie makes it not clear.  

Spoiler alert, this is a love story between these two. Debbie plans to visit him for his birthday and to finish up a degree. I don’t know what degree you can get by attending classes for a week, but I guess that’s not my problem. So, to help Debbie get her degree, Peter flies over to Los Angeles to take care of Debbie’s son Jack and Debbie stays in his place while she finishes her degree.  

The main plot of the movie depicts what happens as they switch places. Debbie hangs out with Peter’s weird younger ex-girlfriend and develops an odd friendship with her. Peter hangs out with Jack and discovers that Debbie has been a complete overprotective parent. This turns into a week where Peter tries to break Jack out of his bubble so he can be happier with his life. He has a ton of allergies and physical issues, but he has been isolated from even trying to do things that he enjoys. This leads to a pretty wholesome connection between the two.  

Debbie lives her best life in New York City. She goes out to bars with the younger ex-girlfriend. They flirt with people she met in classes, and one of the men happens to be an author she is a fan of. This leads to them hooking up and seeing each other. The movie rises into conflict with Debbie discovering a novel that Peter had written and hid in his oven. She shows the novel to the publisher, but I don’t really know what ends up happening with the book. It acted more as an avenue to discover more about Peter’s true love for Debbie. His ex-girlfriend then encourages her to talk to Peter about how she truly feels. It ends with them getting into a fight about Peter. She tells him off but then they see each other in the airport and predictably forgive each other and kiss.  

This movie is a bit of a mess, but it’s honestly very entertaining. It made me laugh and root for them to get together. There were a ton of plot holes and characters that were irrelevant to the story. I think this is everything romcoms have been. Cheesy, goofy and bizarre. This was not a good movie, but it was definitely entertaining. 

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