The Lovebirds Review

May 28, 2020 at 2:58am
By Jason Stettner

The Lovebirds is a Netflix Original film that follows a couple during one wild night where things continue to get worse. It’s very much your typical romantic comedy set against a series of chaotic events. Its mayhem, and this felt incredibly generic. We have Leilani (Issa Rae) and Jibran (Kumail Nanjiani) who are both at the end of this particular relationship. That’s when things take some bizarre turns and they’re all of a sudden on the run.

This journey is about randomly coming across clues as they’re trying to find out who is behind the various issues they now face. This sends them across town to some rather weird situations, and allows them to witness a number of adult oriented situations. While some of these events were interesting, this also felt like something I’ve watched a number of times in the past. It also had issues delivering on the laughs, with few moments being funny.

I had hoped for more and either the material wasn’t great or there just wasn’t any chemistry between these two leads. I would have assumed their banter would be a strong point, but it just didn’t line up and felt rather bland like most of the movie. There weren’t any interesting side-plots, and it really was just centrally focused on these two without any care for anyone else that was a part of this. This came across as a series of awkward, and disjointed moments that led towards a very predictable ending.

It’s hard to really dive into the cast as no one aside from the leads were that memorable or even present for long. Their primary antagonist is entirely generic, and just a shadow that pops in at times to eliminate people. Some of the side plots were seemingly abandoned, and there was no actual substance in the background.

There really wasn’t much to this, and at the same time I can’t really recall any moments that were too aesthetically pleasing. It all leaned into a slow, yet short ride alongside two that were likely just dealing with the material provided.

It was a very weak sort of movie, and there really wasn’t anything too memorable. I can’t recall any stand out points in it and it’s yet another movie I just sort of witnessed. I will again go back to mentioning that it did provide a couple laughs, it just wasn’t anything too wildly funny. I’m also hard pressed to remember the funny moments in it.

The Conclusion

The Lovebirds is a really generic couple goes on the run and experiences strange events over a night sort of movie. That’s about all I can sum this up as being, there’s nothing special or distinct about it. It exists as a movie I watched, one where you could see what would happen a very short while in.

There was no deep character development, no interesting side plots or even unique characters in the backdrop. The story was paper thin, with brief little connections that didn’t drum up any interest. It was lifeless, and provided very few laughs throughout. The leads didn’t seem to have chemistry in this, and or material to work with.

I had somewhat looked forward to this one, and I don’t really feel any point of it was memorable. Even its attempts at callbacks were so very weak. It’s hard to write about I suppose, not much of substance to go over. It serves as something to view, and then move on from likely forgetting it forever.

The Lovebirds Review at Home with Streamed Viewing
Content Access was Provided by Netflix

Rating Overall: 4.2