La lista

Wow, what a completely disgusting premise for a film. Society is going down the drain.

At the end of the day the acting and characters were mid, but the fact this story was even made makes me sick to my core.

Why is it that films like this can even be greenlighted and put into production? I imagine the film will do well just because of the current state of the world with social media, debauchery, dating apps, etc.

If I could turn back time and not even know this film existed I certainly would. I will just be spending the next couple weeks trying to erase this film from my memory with lots of drugs and alcohol.

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.

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.

Is it a 10? No, it's not a 10. But I'm showing my support against the people who inexplicably rated it a 1. Realistically, it's a solid 7 and a helluva good time.

Basic plot is Abby Myers is about to get married and finds out her fiancé slept with a celebrity from his free pass list. With her life turned upside down, she heads out to LA with her best friend Chloe to track down and sleep with one of the five men on her own list.

The setup is actually super fun and relatable. It opens the doors to lots of celebrity name dropping and pop culture references which makes this super fun for anyone who reads US Weekly or follows gossip pages on social.

Dialogue is really clever. I found myself giggling at a lot of the exchanges and then cracking up at some of the big physical comedy moments. If anything I wanted to see even more if it. Halston carries the movie (she is basically in every scene, and I wasn't complaining). Great supporting cast led by Chrissie Fit who is hilarious, and Christian Navarro who is absolutely charming. The small characters also really bring the funny too.

Overall - a sweet and charming rom com with more laughs than average. I think it's a perfect date night movie!