The Lovebirds (2020)

The Lovebirds (2020)

5/10

Starring

Kumail Nanjiani

Issa Rae

Directed by Michael Showalter

The movie made me laugh like twice when some very unexpected things happened. I give it one thing, it is a watchable movie, sad thing is – it is not memorable and after seeing it once I cannot imagine myself ever wanting to sit through it again.

Issa Rae acted badly. The best way to put it is – in this film she acted like she was acting.

Everything seemed forced from the smile to the frown. I so much tried to like Issa Rae in this film, because this is the first thing of hers I am seeing. I know she is popular for doing her own show, but after the bad acting in the first 10 minutes of the movie, I sat there wishing maybe she will warm up and get really into the character, but she never did. Which made me wonder if her other movies and shows has her acting this poorly and this just made me not want to see them.

The movie had a nice setup here is a couple (Rae and Kumail Nanjiani) who are going through what they believe is a rough parch in their relationship. When they decided to make a drastic turn of things and do what they believe is best, an officer hijacks their car and turns their life upside down. The officer dragged them into his mess and from one bad choice from the officer, the couple being on the minority rung of things, decided to do what they believe is best and ran from the cop and what he has done.

So as not to drop spoilers, the movie has them trying to figure out what happened and get ahead of things before the police find out who they are, where they are and how much they are involved.

Knowing that this movie was directed by Michael Showalter made the feeling of watching it worse for me. He worked with Nanjiani in The Big Sick (2017) which was an amazing rom-com, this followup movie is a big let down in comparison.

The Lovebirds is an okay film which you can catch on Netflix, there is not much to expect so I will ask you to lower your expectations. If you have not read about the movie before seeing it, like I did, get ready to be surprised by the twist and turns the movie takes. But those twist cannot make up for the odd couple pairing and the lack of a good supporting cast for Kumail Nanjiani as he carried the movie on his own.