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Brittany Snow May 16, 2019
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Netflix’s new movie ‘Someone Great’ goes beyond rom-com tropes

Netflix recently released the film Someone Great written and directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson.

The film’s protagonist Jenny played by Gina Rodriguez is a music journalist who just landed her dream job at Rolling Stone but has to move to San Francisco.

The move pushes her boyfriend of nine years to break up with her. The movie follows Jenny as she tries to nurse her broken heart.

The film could have easily followed every romantic comedy trope we’re familiar with. It sets up the plot in an identifiable way with Jenny crying over her ex and dancing it out to Lizzo’s “Truth Hurts.”

Jenny’s friends try to cheer her up and agree to go to a music event Jenny loves called the Neon Classic. She convinces her friends to drop work and everything else and spends the day reminiscing about her relationship with Nate (Lakeith Stanfield) and slowly reliving how it ended.

Throughout the film, we get guest star appearances from RuPaul and Rosario Dawson to Jessie Reyes. Additionally, Jenny is not the sole protagonist. Her friends are not two-dimensional characters who are there to play off Jenny’s life, they are full characters.

Erin played by DeWanda Wise is grappling with taking her relationship to the next level. She struggles with committing to her new girlfriend who she refuses to call her girlfriend. Blair played by Brittany Snow comes to terms with her unhappiness and lack of passion in her current relationship. The film has a bomb ass soundtrack too.

SPOILER ALERT

We learn quite quickly that Jenny is not over Nate and she wants very desperately to work it out and get back together. It feels like she might. The film sets us up to expect that they really might just ignore their issues and work on long distance.

We’re used to happy endings in romantic comedies and those happy endings usually have our loving couple end up together or our protagonist finding someone else. In the case of Someone Great, no new love interest is presented so we expect the former.

Still, we’re fooled. Jenny does get to see Nate again and tells him she loves him from afar, which is all we get. She doesn’t get to talk to him at length and they don’t get to talk out their differences. We learn in pieces how their communication has been disintegrating and their conversations becoming toxic.

So it’s probably for the best.

The main reason why this film captures a breakup so well is that it spans only one day. The first day after the breakup. Like in a real breakup we don’t get to skip the hard parts and see what comes next.

We’re stuck in the past, reliving the good and the bad and trying to hold on to both. Someone Great captures post-breakup feelings and still gives us some hope by emphasizing the love we get from friends and most importantly ourselves.