| Not immediately clear from the plot description is just how much nonsense and complete lack of logic is going on here. We have eight friends from college, who were apparently best friends at the time of graduation but then most (all but two) went their separate ways and are meeting up now, twenty years later. The opening scene is just a montage of the actual reunion – a barbecue, some food, some games, lots of talking and laughing. | | 2024
Directed by: Tom Carroll
Screenplay by: Tom Carroll
Starring: Carly Christopher, Grayson Berry
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The movie, and all of the problems, then start immediately after the reunion. They’re all just sitting around the table asking each other what each of them do for a living. We have a lawyer, an accountant, a doctor, a restaurant owner, a marketing manager, etc. All different fields, and no particularly creative out-of-the-ordinary job which isn’t already a standard movie career. But how do they not know what career their former friends are in (and what were they talking about at the reunion if nobody mentioned their careers?) Did the marketing manager not go to school for marketing? Did the accountant not go to school for accounting? Were the lawyer and doctor not on their way to law school and med school immediately after graduation? The rest of the movie tells us that these are not mid-life career changes, they have all been in their chosen fields for awhile, logically since college, so the set-up makes absolutely no sense.
The set-up also manages to get worse. The college friends, courtesy of a now married pair, are going to celebrate their 20-year college reunion for a full week, they’ve rented a house for all of them to take a well-earned vacation - an impromptu week-long vacation, and none of them needed to make new flight arrangements or rental car agreements, so more nonsense. As they soon discover, they are all unhappy in their jobs and start listing their dream jobs, which they are going to start immediately. There is some inherent comedy in that, and this is a comedy, so I shouldn’t be too critical, but at the same time, so many of these characters are so illogical.
The marketing manager wants to become a detective. So he builds a website to launch his detective agency and is immediately shocked and upset to discover that he doesn’t have any customers yet. Does he not know what marketing is? He thought he could just get customers with no marketing whatsoever. The comedy would be much easier to take if the characters had some semblance of logic. Most of the characters are like this. There is also some inexperience involved in this production, so while the actors are trying their best, you can tell they are trying. These are not smooth performances.
Eventually it becomes clear that random new jobs aren’t going to come easily, and all they really need is to see their current job in a new light. This is a really nice resolution to the movie. However, the complete lack of logic in getting there hurts the comedy, making it a chore to get through.
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