Spin Me Round – first-look review

Amber (Ali­son Brie) wants her Eat Pray Love moment, and after her boss rec­om­mends her for a man­age­r­i­al pro­gram in Italy, it seems like she just might get it. For nine years, she’s clocked in as the straight-laced man­ag­er of a casu­al din­ing chain restau­rant called Tus­can Grove, a not-so-sub­tle Olive Gar­den par­o­dy. ​“Pas­ta la vista!” read the employ­ee badges. The trip pos­es new dreams to Amber after she once tried to open her own restau­rant — one of many poten­tial­ly inter­est­ing threads that Spin Me Round intro­duces, then drops for a dis­con­nect­ed series of bits that nev­er coa­lesce into a com­pelling narrative.

Things start promis­ing enough as Spin Me Round plays with Amber’s expec­ta­tions of a life-chang­ing sojourn. The pro­gram enforces a strict cur­few, pre­vent­ing any late-night intrigues. Dreams of stay­ing at a grand coun­try­side vil­la get usurped by a drab hotel next to train tracks. ​“So much… brick,” anoth­er pro­gram attendee coos. Even the pic­turesque Ital­ian scenery seems flat as Amber finds her roman­tic quest rel­e­gat­ed to cook­ing demon­stra­tions and hotel lob­by par­ties. So far, so hum-drum, until the revered CEO Nick Mar­tuc­ci (Alessan­dro Nivola) arrives with his world­ly assis­tant Kat (Aubrey Plaza, abhor­rent­ly under­used). Nick takes a keen inter­est in Amber, whisk­ing her away from the retreat to his yacht where he dis­arms her with prob­ing per­son­al ques­tions. Ethe­re­al music and dou­ble expo­sures accom­pa­ny her trance. She swoons.

Brie and direc­tor Jeff Bae­na co-write the script and mine that par­tic­u­lar brand of cringe com­e­dy that fits the Duplass Broth­ers Pro­duc­tions stamp. They find their great­est moments in that slow real­iza­tion that all your new co-work­ers are odd­balls, like the Amer­i­can pro­gram leader who des­per­ate­ly wants to be Ital­ian or the volatile over­shar­er who divulges her sex life at a pin’s drop. A strong slate of sup­port­ing cast mem­bers liv­en up the first act’s improv feel: Mol­ly Shan­non, Tim Hei­deck­er, Ayden May­eri, Zach Woods, Deb­by Ryan. Small zooms and a whim­si­cal Muzak-esque score accen­tu­ate the humor, to dimin­ish­ing returns.

Nick kick­starts the film’s wider plot, as Amber embarks on a whirl­wind romance, then har­bors sus­pi­cions that something’s amiss at Tus­can Grove. His arrival also sig­nals Spin Me Round’s nose­dive in qual­i­ty. Char­ac­ter arcs dis­si­pate into thin air. Amber’s desire for con­nec­tion nev­er delves below the sur­face, and her rela­tion­ship with Nick is so quick­ly drawn that it’s unclear why she keeps obsess­ing despite red flags. Even more frus­trat­ing is how the film teas­es attrac­tion between Amber and Kat before abrupt­ly dis­card­ing the lat­ter. (Plaza fans, beware how lit­tle she actu­al­ly appears in this.)

The final act devolves into full-blown chaos clear­ly intend­ed to shock and push genre lines, but the man­u­fac­tured ridicu­lous­ness falls flat. A cru­cial detail sur­round­ing the paper-thin cor­po­rate con­spir­a­cy gets obscured in an unbe­liev­ably con­trived fash­ion, result­ing in a reveal so limp that it’s hard not to groan. Spin Me Round has too tal­ent­ed a comedic cast to not earn some laughs but nev­er finds a nar­ra­tive foothold to give its absur­di­ty pur­pose. ​“Pas­ta la vista” indeed.