popcornoclock

I heard about this show because I like Greg Davies. After watching all of his YouTube videos being the taskmaster or regaling guests with stories on the Graham Norton Show I finally came across a video of him and the wolf from twilight, a film series I haven't seen. Oh yeah, I thought, Greg did have that story about FaceTiming his sister so she could say hi to this guy. Well his name is Taylor Lautner and the synergy he and Greg have in those YouTube videos (e.g. British citizenship test) is amazing. I couldn't stop laughing and rewatch those vids whenever I want to laugh again. So I look up this tv show they're in together and see that Taylor only appears in Season 2. I speed through season 1 which was ... decent I guess ... then thoroughly enjoyed Season 2. Taylor is great. He's ridiculous and funny but genuine, and his chemistry with Esther Smith is undeniable. Season 2 was so good, and so successful, that of course the producers wanted to keep going. I would say please stop. Season 2 comes to a conclusion. You can tell things were supposed to be resolved and they are. Upon learning a Season 3 was coming the writers try desperately to unresolve some things and bring in new things but it's terrible. Stop at the end of season 2.

I remember learning that doctors and psychologists are trained in communication classes to validate the emotions of grieving or upset patients, rather than to just start laying on advice or - even worse - accidentally dismiss the patient's emotions. This works best in everyday life too. When we validate and empathise, a person feels seen and - perhaps unexpectedly - they feel comforted.

Unfortunately the father in this film did not learn how to comfort someone. His opening line dismisses his daughter's grief, then he's self-righteously angry and finally he somehow thinks that making his daughter seem like a replaceable object is relevant to the feelings she's having. "A man must have written this", I thought to myself. Now hear me out. This is an odd thought for me as I am a man and have not wondered about the gender of a scriptwriter when I'm five minutes into a movie before. But this "advice" from a character I immediately disliked (but could tell I was supposed to agree with) was just so odd and so clearly tied to low-tier male thinking that it couldn't not be a man who wrote it. Honestly, who tries to comfort a grieving daughter by saying she would have been replaced - as if sexual replacement is relevant to her love or her grief in that moment.

So I pause the movie to look it up and of course ... written and directed by a couple of men. Give them a chance. I tell myself. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we are supposed to dislike the father and these guys know exactly what they're doing. So I keep watching with fascination. Unfortunately the film then descends into a couple of bros getting away with saying weird stuff to women because they're making female characters say it. "Your scrawny ass", "it's just like pole dancing", "I didn't wear this push-up bra for nothing" etc. Etc.. It's painfully obvious that this 'banter' came from a man's mind and a man's script. But it's alright if a woman says it, right?

Speaking of the script, even apart from how obvious the problematic thinking in it is, it's not great. As other reviewers have alluded to, it makes the protagonists make some pretty nonsensical decisions, and even features a random and bizarre reference to what is presumably the writer and/or director's favourite professional wrestlers.

The saving grace of this film is that Grace Caroline Currey does a great job with the material she is given. You really hope that her character, Becky, survives.

Honestly, comparing this movie to that which comes out of your derrière hitting a fan is overly generous, because at least that would have a small degree of unpredictability. This film, however, is as predictable as they come, featuring boring clichés and painfully drab cardboard cut-out characters. Will the pretty, good-hearted, genius cardboard cut-out really turn down an offer to return to what she loves doing and is an expert at? Will she get to meet a sexy, rough and tumble, good-hearted cowboy type along the way? Who, let's not forget, has to have a compulsory scene where he puts his cowboy hat on his head with one muscular arm, framed in the early morning hours by a scene of lovely, rustic, country America? Honestly, the amount of time they must have spent perfecting that cliché scene speaks to their diligence and commitment to be boring. A shred of originality would have been nice, and maybe not signposting every plot element a mile off. I mean, right at the beginning, if a bunch of secondary characters we're not supposed to care about are getting more screen-time and being overtly humanised then it is disgustingly obvious that they are the ones that we, in fact, are supposed to care about. Nothing in this film happens without you predicting it. It relies too heavily on clichés and is just full of poorly executed lazy scriptwriting. Give me the proverbial fan over Twisters any day.