Plus One

At the cen­tre of Jeff Chan and Andrew Rhymer’s direc­to­r­i­al debut are two Cal­i­forn­ian friends who, when feel­ing the blues of being sin­gle at a friend’s nup­tials, agree to be each other’s plus ones at a slew of sum­mer weddings.

A mer­ry if slight­ly for­mu­la­ic roman­tic com­e­dy, she, Alice (Maya Ersk­ine), is fun-lov­ing yet down in the dumps fol­low­ing the recent infi­deli­ty of her sleaze­ball ex, while he, Ben (Jack Quaid), is so afraid of com­mit­ment he won’t even respond to his father (Ed Beg­ley Jr) ask­ing him to be the best man at his third wedding.

As the pair lean on each oth­er from the onset, they are so glar­ing­ly com­pat­i­ble that nei­ther are ever real­ly in the friend­zone, yet for­tu­nate­ly Chan and Rhymer don’t waste too much time with the will-they-won’t‑they aspect. Quaid plays his pick­i­ness in search­ing for Miss Per­fect as goofy rather than arro­gant, which togeth­er with impec­ca­ble com­ic tim­ing cru­cial­ly makes Ben likeable.

Mean­while, in the vein of Fleabag, Ersk­ine is excep­tion­al as the foul-mouthed and free­wheel­ing Alice, bring­ing infec­tious ener­gy and charm as some­one hold­ing it togeth­er fol­low­ing recent heartache. If Chan and Rhymer’s writ­ing lacks sub­tle­ty, it still pro­duces sharp-wit­ted relief when pok­ing fun at the white-col­lar Amer­i­can demo­graph­ic of its char­ac­ters. Sim­i­lar­ly the script has an endear­ing self-aware­ness in approach­ing clichés.

A sun­ny, pop-folk sound­track adds to the upbeat tenor of the sum­mer of love while sim­i­lar cheer­i­ness comes from a screw­ball Beg­ley Jr and MVPs Bran­don Kyle Good­man and Max Jenk­ins, the new­ly­weds who label Alice and Ben as ​“straight peo­ple over­think­ing it”.

Away from these quips, some tired beats of the genre are hit in the third act, but the pal­pa­ble spark­i­ness of Ersk­ine and Quaid’s chem­istry cer­tain­ly props up this tale of find­ing love when you stop look­ing for it.