Metacritic reviews

Both breezy and deeply emotional, Brosh McKenna’s directorial debut could be a leader in the rom-com renaissance the movies have so desperately needed.

In some ways, it’s not much, but in the ways that count, it’s more than enough.

It’s a breezy charmer — the kind of movie these obits have been mourning over the years. The film returns to the genre’s blueprint and sticks with it. There are a couple of instances of subversion, moments when Your Place or Mine winks and pokes fun at itself. But for the most part it doesn’t want to surprise or be more clever than the viewer; it aims to please, and in doing so helps re-energize the romantic comedy.

Your Place Or Mine isn’t that invested in crafting a world that looks anything like ours; it’s arguably more interested in giving its supporting cast’s ace one-liners (which, I’ll admit, is where the film sporadically got me chuckling).

The film allows Witherspoon and Kutcher to show off their naturally funny sides, especially when they’re fishes out of water. But many of the scenes drag on and sometimes the exposition is chalky.

Brosh McKenna knows her tropes, and when she finally, finally brings rom-com vets Witherspoon and Kutcher together IRL (for an airport-set love declaration, of course), we’re reminded why these things work so well, how cozy and comfortable the inevitable it is, how wonderful to wrap everything up with a big bow, even if we saw that gift coming from a mile (or 20 years) away.

Your Place or Mine has a decent premise with a great cast and is fun at times with moments that are sweet and showcase great potential for an enjoyable rom-com, but it never hits the mark and only works in pieces.

What should be breezy, featherweight fun — Reese! Ashton! A screenplay by the lady who wrote The Devil Wears Prada and 27 Dresses! — instead turns out to be oddly hollow, a meandering and synthetic approximation of classic rom-com canon with too little romance or comedy in its strained, familiar formula.

Even as glossy run-of-the-mill formula, it’s never even close to being as funny or romantic as it needs to be, devoid of fizzy one-liners and hampered by the pair struggling to muster up chemistry during phone conversations that never feel as lived-in as they would for friends with such extensive history.

No one in this movie is playing anything near a human being, although Kutcher occasionally resembles one when he lowers his head, crinkles his eyes and chuckles.