The List

Dialogue is mostly made up of cliches, plot is unsurprising, acting is bland and the characters are absurd and unnuanced. All in all a terrible experience and really a total waste of time. Why didn't anyone pull the brakes on this, before getting this far?

The movie suffers mostly from the writers lack of imagination, like the politician without empathy, the weddingplanner without empathy, the boyfriend without empathy (sorry, did I repeat myself? Maybe I should be a script writer), the conversations without depth, the sad sighs from the audience, when the dialogue is trying to be funny.

Maybe just add som kittens and puppies, so there could be something interesting to watch, while wasting precious time on this.

I simply can not recomend this to anyone and I don't know, how the movie ends, because like my ex-wifes cooking, I couldn't finish it all.

Abby Meyers (Halston Sage) is at a New York City bar with her friends and her fiance when famous actress Kenzie Scott walks in. The conversation quickly turns to celebrity passes as everybody makes up their own list. During the wedding shower, her fiance lets slip that he slept with Kenzie Scott after the bar encounter and this sends her into a tailspin. Her best friend Chloe (Chrissie Fit) takes her to L. A. where she starts hunting down her own list with Chloe's ex Sam (Shelley Hennig)'s help.

As often is the case in this type of rom-com, the hot young girl with model looks just can't get laid. It's a stupid trope. Halston Sage is a hot actress with some comedic chops. She tries. Comedy is not her best skillset but she tries. The stale comedy writing is not helping her and those two guys seems to be relative newcomers. I think Halston can be unleashed with better material and more physical comedy. She needs to do more slapstick to heighten the comedy. Plenty of hot ladies have made that comedic leap and she can be one of them.

I'm quite mad given how actually good the bulk of the story is compared to the editing, the rhythm of the dialogs.

And if you can go pass that, you might actually laugh over some really good lines like I did.

But sometimes it just sounds like you're following a conversation made of voice messages on a cellphone. One abrupt and disconnected vocalization after the other.

The movie was shot in "19 days" and for the scope of what's presented, all the moving parts, they did a great job, so shout out to that.

But again, I can't stress enough how unflattering in post-production the editing was.

I bet this can be saved. Gosh, I hope someone does it.

I really like the lead actress, I've seen her in another movie and she's just lovely.

The movie has the feel of a romantic comedy but doesn't follow the formula for one. So it's light hearted and fun but isn't as sappy as some can be. Not that there's anything wrong with those sorts of movies, we watch them because we know the formula and like it.

It's a good story that is very watchable and keeps you "engaged" ;)

It feels slightly long in the middle and perhaps lacks a bit of direction scriptwise. I liked it and think it promises to deliver what it claims.

Just enjoy the ride and maybe learn a little about being engaged to someone and how that may not work out. Some of us have been there.

A solid movie that is enjoyable and I give it 7/10 as in I'd watch it again.

Thanks for reading.

The List is a perfectly decent movie. It's quite well made. It's quite well acted. And it's quite funny in parts.

Where it falls down is it's lack of oomph, lack of punch, lack of edginess. This is mainly down to the direction and the writing......and the plot with it's conveniences and contrivances......and the ending that is telegraphed in the first half of the movie.....and the weak comedy editing make the slapstick scenes seem a little wooden.

The biggest problem with the direction is the almost constant use of montage and the problem with the script is the constant LA pop culture references.

Maybe singletons in California will get more from this movie more than I did.