Your Place or Mine is the feel-good movie for culture barbarians

I am known for my terrible taste in movies. Seriously, just ask my IMDb-addicted friend. He won't watch a film that scores below 7.5, and I, to his great frustration, watch everything with a nice picture on the front. Just like the new Netflix movie: Your Place or Mine, featuring my all-time celebrity crush Ashton Kutcher and Reese Witherspoon. It is raining bad reviews. It is said that the two have no chemistry, the plot is flat and predictable, and the script is not very challenging. I, on the other hand, only see two of my favorite actors and a semi-romantic storyline, and that is enough reason for me to lend my evening to this, reportedly, disaster of a film.

Your Place or Mine starts with a hefty dose of 2000s nostalgia, you see a young Peter (Ashton Kutcher) and a young Debbie (Reese Witherspoon) having a one-time rendezvous in Debbie's apartment, where everything related to 2003 is highlighted: Von Dutch trucker hats, layered T-shirts, and those wallet chains that everyone used to have. Yes, you understand that you are already making me very happy here, as the biggest 2000s romcom fan ever.

The plot jumps twenty years ahead, where you find out that the film takes place in two of the most cliché romcom cities ever: New York and Los Angeles. Okay, I understand that the eyes of good film enthusiasts will roll at this, but I swallow this like sweet cake. I have never been to either of those two cities, but I still believe that life there is just like in the movies. I don't want to hear anything about it if that's not the case.

The film is anyway held together by all the romcom clichés you can think of. Without giving too much away: he is a businessman with a closed heart and an empty, characterless apartment, she is a smart, beautiful woman with a warm personality and a cozy, messy home. They both have a quirky side character in their lives, and there is even an airport scene, complete with a speech.

They are supported by actors Zoe Chao (who in this film is everything I ever want to be), whom you might know from the Netflix series Love Life, and my personal favorite: Jesse Williams, also known as Dr. Jackson Avery from Grey's Anatomy. This automatically gives this film a 10 from me, end of discussion. That he comes across as completely unbelievable as a reclusive editor who doesn't know how extraterrestrially attractive he is, we will skillfully leave aside for now.

Anyway, I am the last person you should take film tips from, but I found it a delightful watch. It is good for my blood pressure when I can predict exactly what will happen, I can look at Ashton Kutcher's dreamy eyes for hours, and I just have a soft spot for Reese. All in all, it is absolutely not a cultural masterpiece, but a wonderfully predictable feel-good movie without fuss.