CNN
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The time-traveling romance has an uneven history (just ask HBO), but like “Groundhog Day,” that doesn’t stop variations on the theme from happening again and again. Enter “Meet Cute,” an unnecessarily generic title for a film most notable for pairing Kaley Cuoco and Pete Davidson, in a concept with barely enough meat for a “Black Mirror” episode, which likely explains its arrival via Peacock.
Cuoco’s Sheila approaches Davidson’s Gary at a bar, and the two spend a romantic night together getting to know each other, even though his demeanor seems a bit offbeat at times. This is before she explains that she has access to a time machine (located in her local nail salon, for some reason), allowing her to travel back a day, again and again, reliving and revising their first date.
Although Gary is naturally skeptical, he is also irresistibly drawn to her. “We’re just working,” Sheila tells him, a theory she can test, over and over again, by changing the nature of their interaction in small and not-so-small ways and seeing how it goes.
The formula is obviously full of potential, which explains why screenwriters keep coming back to it, from “50 First Dates” to Andy Samberg’s recent film “Palm Springs”. Yet the concept is also perilous, starting with the vaguely cruel aspect the longer the storyline drags on (even in a 90-minute film) and the question of how to creatively break out of the circle, a challenge that “Meet Cute (directed by Alex Lehmann from the screenplay by Noga Pnueli) cannot entirely overcome.
“It’s okay for things to get messy sometimes,” Sheila tells Gary, a phrase that has some meaning in the larger story, but doesn’t necessarily apply as well in this sort of exercise.
After following ‘The Big Bang Theory’ with an escape vehicle (for a season, anyway) in ‘The Flight Attendant’, Cuoco has demonstrated her qualities as a producer and a star, and she is truly the center of the story. ‘story. As for Davidson, there’s no shortage of movie roles, but the “Saturday Night Live” alum seems trapped in a different kind of loop, one that makes him even more famous for his off-screen relationships than his professional endeavours.
Frankly, their team’s brand value alone is likely a modest win for NBC’s streaming service. That said, it would have been nice if “Meet Cute” had done a little more to capitalize on the attention, although as things stand there’s no time-rewind to fix that.
“Meet Cute” premieres Sept. 21 on Peacock.