Netflix seems to add more original content every single day, but one of its biggest hits in the last year was the romantic-comedy, A Christmas Prince. Then again, that film’s popularity was more notorious than beloved. Now, with Set It Up (which became available to stream on Friday), Netflix once again ventures into the romantic comedy world. Thankfully, the result is much better.
Directed by Clair Scanlon and written by Katie Silberman, the film tells the story of Harper (Zoey Deutch) and Charlie (Glen Powell), two assistants who decide to set up their horrible bosses, Rick (Taye Diggs) and Kirsten (Lucy Liu), in hopes of making their own lives a little easier. Though the set-up itself could have come straight from a cheap contemporary romance novel, the execution elevates the film. This is Scanlon’s directorial début, but you wouldn’t know it. Netflix clearly spent money and everything about the film is slick, energetically-paced and chosen for a reason. Scanlon takes the grimy, sweaty streets of New York City in the summer and gives them an immaculate, stylish quality that makes them look more beautiful than they ever have in real life.
Still, all that gloss would be wasted if Silberman’s script weren’t so darn good. This is her first film, but she’s clearly a student of the rom-com form. The dialogue is smart and snappy, but there’s often an edge to it that constantly surprises the viewer with how mean or dirty or just downright unexpected it is. When Kirsten and Harper have a heart-to-heart in the middle of the film, it’s not the expected nice girl talk. Rather, Kirsten literally starts the conversation by saying, “I know I’ve been cunt-y to you,” with total sincerity.
Perhaps the best example of Silberman’s cleverness, though, is the way she structures the film’s parallel romances. In setting up their bosses, Harper and Charlie basically throw them into every rom-com trope in the book, but Silberman never lets those scenes play out in a straightforward way. When they enlist Titus Burgess’s “Creepy Tim” to trap Kirsten and Rick in an elevator together, she ensures the plan backfires by trapping a very anxious delivery man with them. The cleverest twist of all, though, is the way Silberman puts Charlie and Harper through their own series of rom-com tropes (adversarial meet-cute, late-night bitch sessions that suddenly turn romantic, their own very different elevator encounter etc.) without even letting them realize it.
Deutch and Powell are a charming pair and their chemistry keeps Set It Up from becoming too much com and not enough rom. Deutch has been stuck doing teen fare for too long and it’s nice to see her play her own age here. Harper is quirky and girly, but she never veers into cliché territory. She cries while watching sports and can’t seem to find a good guy, but she also has the brilliant idea of turning a sweatshirt into a hands-free bowl by wearing it backwards and filling the hood with popcorn. She’s lovable and sharp without seeming impossible, a New York City working girl for our times.
Audiences will probably know Powell best as either one of the many baseball bros from Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!! or as the charming idiot, Chad Radwell, from Fox’s dearly departed Scream Queens. Charlie is miles away from either of those characters, but Powell still manages to give him the bumbling goofiness that made those characters handsome yet accessible. He perfectly sells the physical comedy of dodging a printer Rick has just thrown out his door while remaining the handsome leading man. He and Deutch share the same goofy/smart quality here and it makes their characters so easy to root for even without the horrible boss angle.
Speaking of, as horrible as Kirsten and Rick are, the film does draw a subtle distinction between them that only grows more obvious as the film progresses. Rick is clearly a vain douchebag and Scanlon and Diggs frequently make him look ridiculous. When he’s being casually cruel to Charlie, there’s a smoothness that feels dismissive and slightly sadistic. He knows the power he wields and he clearly enjoys inflicting it on those beneath him. But that air of power disappears whenever Rick throws a tantrum. He looks like a disgruntled little boy when he’s throwing things around his office, not some fearsome ogre.
By contrast, Kirsten is often cruel, but never really the butt of a joke. There’s a deliberate dignity to the way Liu carries herself that makes the moments when Kirsten is being cruel almost forgivable. If the character were all bad, she wouldn’t be so willing to mentor other women trying to get into the industry or so good at breaking through sexist/patriarchal BS when covering stories. Instead, Liu’s clever performance makes it feel as if some of Kirsten’s behavior really is the product of the tough skin she’s developed becoming a successful sports reporter. You root for her despite her nastiness and it’s easy to imagine Kirsten being the star of her own romantic comedy—albeit a much darker one.
There will be no spoilers here, but you’d have to be pretty new to the genre not to think that Set It Up ends happily. It even ends with an all-time great love confession. However, what makes that ending so enjoyable is how smart, fun and unexpected it is up to that point. Powell and Deutch are a charming pair and Diggs and Liu are almost as interesting despite being almost villains. Let’s hope Silberman is already working on that Kristen-centric sequel.
Rating: 7/10
