Kumail Nanjiani fails important test in crime caper The Lovebirds
Funny duo Kumail Nanjiani and Issa Rae fail one major test in this undemanding crime caper, plus Shailene Woodley’s new love triangle
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Kumail Nanjiani almost saved Chris Hemworth’s butt in Men In Black International but can’t manage the same for new screwball crime caper.
THE LOVEBIRDS
Two and a half stars
Director: Michael Showalter
Starring: Kumail Najiani, Issa Rae, Anna Camp
Rating: M
Running time: 87 minutes
Verdict: Fast-paced, feather-brained crime caper
Kumail Nanjiani’s wisecracking mini alien almost singlehandedly saved Chris Hemsworth’s butt in Men In Black International. His metrosexual uber driver was a great comic foil for Dave Bautista’s hardman detective in the buddy action vehicle Stuber.
Nanjiani struggles to find that same screen chemistry with Awkward Black Girl’s Issa Rae in this screwball crime caper, which Paramount sold to Netflix after the film’s theatrical release was cancelled due to the coronavirus.
And that’s a significant problem when their characters are supposed to be romantically involved, although the couple’s impending break-up does to some extent mitigate the damage.
After a brief prologue in which Jibran (Nanjiani) and Leilani (Rae) fall head-over heels for each other, The Lovebirds takes up their story four years on.
The sheen has well and truly worn off the relationship. Old wounds resurface on their way to a dinner party and a line is crossed.
Unable to take back what’s been said, the introverted documentary maker and his Instagram-obsessed advertising manager girlfriend agree that it’s time to go their separate ways.
Distracted, Jibran, who is driving, fails to notice an approaching cyclist -- until the man’s head smashes into their front windscreen.
The shocked couple are still trying to come to terms with the accident victim’s extraordinarily hasty departure when they are carjacked by a wild eyed “policeman” who takes them on a breakneck car chase through the streets of New Orleans.
When he catches up to his quarry, the mustachioed “officer” mows the cyclist down without a moment’s hesitation, reversing back and forth over the body several times for good measure.
Unable to come up with a plausible defense when passers-by witness them standing over the still-warm corpse, Jibran and Leilani abscond from the scene of the crime.
Mulling over their limited options in a nearby diner, Leilani persuades Jibran that the only way for the couple to prove their innocence is to identify the real perpetrator.
Somewhere in between being tortured by Anna Camp’s sadistic senator’s wife and blundering into secret society that specialises in ritualistic orgies, the clumsy amateur sleuths rediscover their affection for each other.
Clocking in at just under an hour-and-a-half, Lovebirds represents an undemanding distraction for housebound viewers.
There are a handful of laugh-out-loud moments – not all of them earned. And the references to inclusion and diversity feel organic.
Michael Showalter, who also directed Nanjiani in his Oscar-nominated screenplay The Big Sick, sets a lively pace.
In spite of the clunky dialogue, his actors generate enough good will to keep us superficially engaged.
Now screening on Netflix
ENDINGS, BEGINNINGS
Three stars
Director: Drake Doremus
Starring: Shailene Woodley, Jamie Dornan, Sebastian Smee
Rating: MA15+
Running time: 110 minutes
Verdict: An oblique love triangle
Messy, shapeless and all-enveloping, Endings, Beginnings mimics life — at least as a bunch of art, attractive, thirtysomething Los Angeleans might experience it.
Daphne (Shailene Woodley) is in the midst of a major existential crisis.
Having abruptly quit both her job and a happily uneventful four-year relationship, she’s back on her sister’s couch (in this affluent West Coast world, that actually translates to a whole pool room.)
Pretty much all Daphne has left to hold onto, apart from her adoring niece, is a weekly watercolour group run by Kyra Sedgwick’s vintage store owner — everyone should have a mentor as wise and non-judgmental as this one.
Having lost her emotional and professional bearings, Daphne embraces her friend’s radical suggestion that she give being single a shot.
She lasts maybe six days – admittedly in the face of almost irresistible temptation.
At her sister’s New Year’s Eve party, Daphne is actively pursued by two handsome and clearly available suitors.
Frank (I, Tonya’s Sebastian Stan) has flirtatious bad boy charm.
Jack (Fifty Shades of Grey’s Jamie Dornan), a rising star on the literary scene, is a more serious, longer term proposition.
For a set up as potentially melodramatic as this, Endings, Beginnings generates remarkably few suds.
That’s partly due to its treatment of one particularly explosive plot point, partly to director Drake Doremus’s welcome aversion to shouty showdowns, and partly to Woodley’s pared-back performance.
Large portions of the film are improvised, and this provides an opportunity for the actors to do what they do best.
As Daphne, Woodley successfully conveys the pain and confusion that can be experienced by the object of such avid male attention and how that contributes to her character’s difficulty in imagining an identity for herself outside of that gaze.
While Endings, Beginnings teeters on the edge of singular self-absorption, the intimacy of the Insurgent star’s performance grounds it in something more universal.
She is well supported by a strong cast – Wendie Malick, in particular, deserves mention in the role of Daphne’s mother.
The male characters are more thinly drawn, but Dornan is quietly charismatic and Stan lends depth and breadth to what might have been a stereotypical character.
Given the film’s loose, meandering structure, Doremus does a good job of negotiating a plaN
Now available to rent via the Foxtel Store. And On Demand via multiple platforms from July 15
STREAMING A LA CARTE
Most streaming platforms take a smorgasbord approach – offering up an all-you-can-eat banquet of movie titles for subscribers to gorge upon.
But Surry Hill’s boutique Golden Age Cinema and Bar has gone a la carte.
Movie Night is a carefully curated online cinema experience spanning cult classics and quality new releases.
Featured films this week are Non-Fiction, the latest film from Olivier Assayas (Clouds of Sils Maria), starring Juliette Binoche and Guillaume Canet, and The Trip to Greece, with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon.
On the not-to-be-missed list are two singular, Oscar-nominated documentaries: For Sama, mother and activist Waad al-Kateab’s gut wrenching, first-hand account of the Aleppo uprising, and Honeyland, a compelling account of one of the last Macedonia wild beekeepers.
Go to: ourgoldenage.com.au for more details.
CALL OF THE WILD
Two and a half stars
100 minutes (PG)
There’s no danger of a handsomely weathered Harrison Ford being upstaged by his CGI co-star in this domesticated version of Jack London’s 1903 classic.
Buck, the overindulged St Bernard/Scotch collie cross who is abruptly transported to the Alaskan goldfields, is a cartoon character in an untamed landscape.
Thankfully, the newcomer’s inclination towards overacting is firmly countered by Ford, a seasoned veteran who has always understood the power of restraint.
Having aged gracefully into that craggy face and grizzled beard, the 77-year-old A-lister is as comfortable in a tent in late 19th Century Yukon as he was in Star Wars’ Mos Eisley cantina.
Now available via digital release
Originally published as Kumail Nanjiani fails important test in crime caper The Lovebirds
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