The Year of Spectacular Men

Apart from the quaintness of the real life Mother and Daughters thing this rom com is not that great. The way the cast delivers their one liners in a monotone makes it hard to appreciate the comedy. A little more mention of adult things than typical Lifetime. Not lol funny. The guys are a little unspectacular. Sometimes the shouting of the characters borders on shrill.

Not a must watch.

Izzy Klein (Madelyn Deutch) is an X-Files-obsessed sheets-fearing M&Ms-eating mess. It's four years after her father's suicide. Her sister Sabrina (Zoey Deutch) is a Hollywood star. Her boyfriend Aaron Ezra dumps her and it's a series of awkward relationships with men. Her mother (Lea Thompson) and her young girlfriend Amythyst Stone are vegan soul walkers. Following her graduation, she moves to L.A. to live with her sister and her TV star boyfriend Sebastian Bennett.

Madelyn's writing has some fun takes. The sisters have good sibling chemistry. Lea's directing is functional but she should have understood the most important point. The protagonist should be played by the biggest star. The sisters should switch roles. Zoey has an awkward humor that would have worked great as Izzy. I'm sure that there is some autobiography in Izzy being the less successful older sister but the story can be reworked. This has a couple of laughs. It's some quirk and good heart. This could have been an indie darling with Zoey as the lead.

A charming film that will appeal mostly to young and 20-30-something females about navigating early adulthood and dating. Not LOL funny but it has its humorous moments and pretty good character development.

Okay, I realize this isn't a classic and I understand why many people didn't like it, since at the end of the day it's all about taste. What I don't understand is, why are there so many low ratings when it's clear that the movie fulfilled its purpose. I rated it so high compared to most people because it was lovely and I think the overall rating doesn't do it justice. Furthermore I like these kinds of movies that follow somebody's journey through life, especially when they are at a low point. And this one really didn't disappoint me. We watched our young protagonist deal with pretty much everyday problems of a woman. I mean I get why for some people this would be kind of boring since more or less we deal with things like that in real life, but that's exactly one of the reasons I liked it. It's painfully realistic and it seems to me that it comes from a place of love for one's family and anguish for what's gonna come next. It isn't your typical comedy, but it made me laugh, it made me cry, and I'll admit it was kind of awkward at times. But hey, isn't that life?

I keep coming back to this movie. The relationship between the sisters, the themes of becoming an adult and moving away from grief, the music. Of course this movie was made by a mother and her daughters - it so brilliantly captures those relationships. I really hope they have more stories in them.

The low score this film received on IMDB motivated me to write this review, my first. I realize this is clearly a result of not enough women contributing. Come on ladies - make your voices heard more often.