Plus One is a romantic comedy about a pair of college friends being each other's companion to different weddings in the summer. The movie was released in 2019 and stars Jack Quaid (Star Trek: Lower Decks, The Boys) and Maya Erskine (PEN15). It takes place in different parts of California.
The movie starts off with Ben (Quaid) and Alice (Erskine) at a mutual friend's wedding. Alice, recently out of a long-term relationship, gets drunk and leaves early. After the reception, she suggests that Ben and she should be each other's plus ones to the weddings they're invited to. Ben reluctantly agrees as long as Alice can find him his "one true love" through these weddings.
In my opinion, this movie is told from Ben's point of view. It focuses on Ben's personal problems with relationships and his thoughts on them. Alice plays the love interest and the turning point for Ben. Though they did give Alice a story, it still didn't feel like much. Alice's side of the relationship could've been shown a bit more. I feel like Alice is the "cool girl" to Ben's awkwardness. Alice is a go-with-the-flow person and Ben isn't. Ben sits and thinks about the long term, which lands him without the love he's been searching for.
I was expecting a little more from this movie than it actually was. I thought there would be more fun adventures the two go on before the conflict and would actually show the "honeymoon phase". There was only one montage of them in Hawaii after a wedding, relaxing with each other. Most romcoms have a moment where one of the love interests breaks out of their usual self and does something crazy. One scene related to this is a deleted scene from Trainwreck, where Bill Hader's character steals a horse-drawn carriage. Another scene is from The Princess Diaries 2: The Royal Engagement, where Mia sneaks out to meet Nicholas in the middle of the night. Those out-of-character moments sell the relationship to viewers, showing how they can change for their partners.
One part of the movie I enjoyed was the costumes. I really liked Alices' wedding attire. The weddings took place in California in the summer, so her outfits were more lightweight and flowy. I also did enjoy the locations where the movie scenes were filmed. Although, I didn't like the coloring/filter of the scenes. It felt too warm-toned.
Would I recommend Plus One? Probably not. It wasn't super fun to watch and I didn't really care about it after it ended. There are better romcoms that are similar to it, like Trainwreck. I don't want to hate it too much since it was a small film and trainwreck was a huge film with big stars and a popular director. But if you do want to watch Plus One, don't keep your expectations too high.
Rating: 6/10
