Hulu’s The Valet is the perfect film if you’re looking for something light and fluffy, but don’t want to binge watch Lifetime and Hallmark movies. This movie is not going to win an Oscar — it wasn’t intended to. The Valet is a feel-good movie about two people from different worlds who forge an unlikely friendship. In this case, it’s a valet and a movie star.
While the premise isn’t original and this version is based on the French movie of the same name, the base formula works well and serves its purpose in The Valet. It also helps that this movie has the formula of a love story but isn’t about love at all. At first, the movie appears to be about a successful real estate developer who cheats on his wife with a movie star, gets dangerously close to being caught, and has his movie star girlfriend pretend to date a valet to make his story about not knowing her believable.
In a typical movie, the valet and movie star fall in love and live happily ever after. Without giving spoilers away, this movie plays with that idea, yet doesn’t resort to cliches. The Valet isn’t about finding love. It’s about finding happiness. During the course of the movie, Olivia Allan (Samara Weaving) hangs around Antonio’s (Eugenio Derbez) family and finds what life is like when surrounded by people who genuinely care about you. Unfortunately, Oliva doesn’t know what that’s like because she’s been trying to make it in Hollywood since she was 16. This two-hour movie shows her realization that she needs someone to ground her in reality.
Despite starting off with the affair between Vincent Royce (Max Greenfield) and Olivia, the movie uses that as an excuse to set the plot in motion. The Valet isn’t about Vincent. He’s a simply a vessel to show how rude and arrogant some rich people can be. He does eventually get what he deserves, but it feels more like an afterthought than a cathartic event.
For a film that can be accused of being unoriginal, The Valet is delightful. It plays with the formula enough that the movie manages to sustain its two-hour runtime without becoming tedious. It’s the perfect movie to curl up with some popcorn and hot chocolate on a cold winter day, which makes the timing of its release odd. Instead of waiting six months to watch The Valet, maybe watch it with a glass of wine before bed on a day you don’t feel like dealing with the real world.
