Reese Witherspoon

Your Place or Mine movie review: Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher make for an easy pair to root for, but Netflix's new rom-com puts itself in a cage of ...

For starters, Brosh McKenna has Debbie and Peter spend almost the entirety of the movie in separate cities, united only by her frequent use of the split-screen and cross-cutting. For most of its run time, it feels like Your Place or Mine has completely forgotten that it is a Netflix rom-com at all. And while Debbie and Peter’s near-constant use of technology gives the movie a contemporary edge (and perhaps an added layer of relatability), nothing can replace the feeling of being in the same room with another person and feeling the energy shift, as you watch the air become thick with electricity and tension, buzzing in anticipation about who will make the first move. But a lack of winky self-awareness notwithstanding, Brosh McKenna understands the value that two good-looking leads can bring to a movie like this. Your Place or Mine could have turned into a story about a self-centred man who discovers that there’s more to life than empty hook-ups and a rebellious attitude when, like Hugh Grant in About a Boy, he is given the responsibility of taking care of a human child. Cut to the present day; she’s a single mother who wants to make up for lost time by taking a course in New York, and he’s a wealthy consultant who has settled into a lone-wolf lifestyle.

Scheduled to spend a week in New York getting a degree that will advance her career, Debbie abruptly loses her babysitting, at which point Peter gallantly steps ...

Brosh McKenna clearly knows her way around the genre (her writing credits also include “27 Dresses”), as do her stars. But those awkward red-carpet photos weren’t the only part of this exercise that didn’t quite work, whatever place one happens to watch it. Despite a fleeting history described as a “hookup,” Kutcher’s Peter and Witherspoon’s Debbie have been platonic friends for 20 years. While that has worked out before (think “Sleepless in Seattle”), it doesn’t here, in a Netflix movie that proves roughly as generic as its title. Then again, the movie is as much about real estate as romance, as well as the familiar question of paths taken and not chosen. Written and directed by Aline Brosh McKenna of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” renown (who also produced along with, among others, Witherspoon and Jason Bateman), “Your Place” hinges on Peter and Debbie learning to appreciate each other’s differences – she’s a stickler for routine, while he’s free-spirited, or “irresponsible” in her eyes – through their house-swap experiences.

If you decide to watch "Your Place or Mine" to see the sparks fly between Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher, you'll be initially disappointed.

-- a scene when Witherspoon and Kutcher are in the same ZIP code and a nice flipping of the traditional rom-com airport scene on its head. The film allows Witherspoon and Kutcher to show off their naturally funny sides, especially when they're fishes out of water. She also flirts with a hunky publisher -- Jesse Williams, smoldering -- and breaks all logic when she doesn't immediately fall into the cool, sensual piercing blue of his eyes and never wants to leave ... On the other coast, Witherspoon finds an old manuscript her best friend has hidden from her and decides she must try to get it published. Kutcher tries to loosen up his best friend's son -- snack on junk food, letting him watch scary movies and allowing him to try out for the hockey team, all things forbidden when mom's around. This Valentine's Day, it hits the spot if you're in the mood for pretty people acting insecure and clueless.

Fans of The Holiday will find familiarity in the premise of Netflix's Your Place or Mine. The new movie follows best friends Debbie (Reese Witherspoon) and ...

Built on '00s rom-com nostalgia, Your Place or Mine unites Ashton Kutcher and Reese Witherspoon for a film that only makes you think of better movies.

His idiosyncratic character brings a level of messy zaniness to the table, one that often appears in the early ‘00s film that Your Place or Mine wants so desperately to be, and one reminding us yet again of everything that Your Place or Mine is not. (I’m still patiently waiting for her to be cast as a rom-com lead.) Steve Zahn is also welcome as Debbie’s quirky neighbor who spends his days tending to her garden just for fun. (And what a shame coming from the writer of the superb The Devil Wears Prada, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and 27 Dresses!) Referencing the golden age of rom-coms in a time when the genre is unmistakably suffering—verging on obsolete—is already a big gamble, and immediately juxtaposing Your Place or Mine with much better films gives it an unfair disadvantage right out of the gate. Written and directed by The Devil Wears Prada’s Aline Brosh McKenna, Your Place or Mine is well aware of this fact, and even goes so far as to overlay its first scene, which takes place in 2003, with cheeky, cutesy text bubbles labeling things that place the characters in this faraway time (a wallet-chain, flat-ironed hair). Witherspoon is magnetic as Debbie, remaining consistently funny and charming throughout, despite being confined to a one-dimensional helicopter mom trope.

Reese Witherspoon is a certified book lover, with a wildly popular book club, and yet her Your Place Or Mine co-star Ashton Kutcher, beat her in that ...

[friends-to-lovers romantic comedy](https://www.cinemablend.com/movies/the-10-best-friends-to-lovers-romantic-comedies-including-13-going-on-30), Ashton Kutcher and Reese Witherspoon play longtime best friends who live on opposite sides of the United States, NYC and Los Angeles respectively, but keep in touch all the time over video. During Debbie’s New York adventures, she stumbles on a hero of hers in the book publishing industry (played by Jesse Williams), whilst Peter enjoys quality time with her son in Los Angeles. Since the actor’s latest role is someone who deeply loves reading, the filmmaker gave the actor a ton of books to read ahead of the role. So it’s not exactly a stretch for Witherspoon to play a major book lover in [her latest romantic comedy, Netflix’s Your Place Or Mine](https://www.cinemablend.com/movies/your-place-or-mine-quick-things-we-know-about-netflixs-reese-witherspoon-and-ashton-kutcher-rom-com). [Aline Brosh McKenna](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0112459/?ref_=ttfc_fc_wr1), who famously penned beloved movies like The Devil Wears Prada and 27 Dresses. [producer who adapts popular books](https://www.cinemablend.com/interviews/how-reese-witherspoon-brought-female-inclusion-behind-the-scenes-of-where-the-crawdads-sing) and starting her own incredibly successful and respected book club.

In preparation for playing two book lovers in 'Your Place or Mine,' Ashton Kutcher and Reese Witherspoon were given reading assignments.

And sometimes that brings you to realizing you shouldn't be a people pleaser, which is 27 Dresses. That idea that it's people going through something and sometimes that brings you to a zoo. We didn't have a lot of runway between the walkway and the end of the stage. In terms of rediscovering each other, the ember is also this dream of what they were going to be when they first met when they were in their 20s. But I think all of the movies, including Prada and Crazy Ex, always come down to the human emotion and what is underneath that. What you choose to do when you first enter the world is probably the purest form of your aspiration. Because it's about adults, because it's grown up, because it has scale, it felt really right for it to be the first movie I directed. ALINE BROSH MCKENNA: I went to New York to work on a movie and I needed a place to stay that was relatively inexpensive. Adds McKenna to EW: "I didn't know that Ashton would read all of the books I gave him. The other great thing about having been a showrunner was the years that I spent working so closely with actors and having my creative partner being an actor. One of them had an inscription to someone named Peter, so I decided that was Peter's book that she had kept when he moved." "With Reese, I gave her a bunch of books that I felt like Debbie had collected over the years — some first editions, some beat-up paperbacks.

Aline Brosh McKenna's ('The Devil Wears Prada') cross-country Netflix romcom shouldn't work given the leads' lack of sparks, yet has a strange charm.

Or if the characters were older — maybe that’d make it easier to buy into the idea that these two people are already so sure of what they want out of life, so experienced in the ritual of being let down by more titillating flings and affairs, that settling down with someone familiar might make noble sense. And Your Place or Mine is worth watching for that alone, this iron-willed commitment to the premise in full defiance of what the characters are actually giving us. Here she is, look at her go: showing up to her seminar with a backpack and new school supplies, practically huffing the scent of a newly-sharpened pencil, being all wide-eyed and adorably game for the joys of life, being completely absent of any kind of cynicism. When she and Williams’s publisher get to prattle their way through a handful of cute scenes, the movie finally lands on something: a counterargument. [romance](https://www.rollingstone.com/t/romance/) to watch! And then the backstories kick in and Your Place or Mine, which runs nearly two hours, gets distracted, pretending that it’s as worthwhile to watch Debbie chatting it up with Peter’s fab, New Yorkey ex as it is watching Peter try to play dad to Debbie’s perfectly well-adjusted teen. Your Place or Mine offers us a full-blown case for reverting back to the anodyne safety and security of the familiar, no matter the substantial downsides. When Your Place or Mine opens, Debbie and Peter get the split-screened, made-for-each-other visual gags familiar from old Doris Day and Rock Hudson comedies, those cutely twinned shots of each of them lying in bed reading at the same time, bathing at the same time, ritualistically in sync in ways neither of them fully realizes. Played, respectively, by [Reese Witherspoon](https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/kacey-musgraves-reese-witherspoon-talk-struggles-for-women-in-country-music-713278/) and [Ashton Kutcher](https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/a-closer-look-at-ashton-kutcher-69773/), Debbie and Peter are long-time friends. Debbie’s headed to New York for a week-long seminar (she’s trying to abandon her love of the literary arts in favor of a more practical job that pays more), and it’s supposed to be an occasion for her and her bestie to reunite. Each of these people (one more than the other, owing to a certain unevenness at the heart of the movie) has to choose between the genuine but uncertain chemistry that enters their lives — a real, tactile, tingly sexual spark — or the chance to return to their shared, multi-decade past, to the person that they know will never leave them because they’ve always already been there. He lives in a steely Brooklyn apartment with a view of Manhattan that’s furnished with a stove he’s never used, cutlery that’s never been opened, and a despairing lack of tchotchkes — there is not so much as a photo of himself or anyone he loves in plain sight.

Starring in Your Place or Mine came with a bunch of reading materials for Ashton Kutcher and Reese Witherspoon.

She said, "I gave Ashton books that I thought Peter would have and would have read and have a point of view on." I'm running a company, and I have a full-time other job. I called her, and I said, 'I have three children. I read all of them. He said, "I'm not a very big fiction reader, I don't read a lot of fiction. She continued, "With Reese, I gave her a bunch of books that I felt like Debbie had collected over the years — some first editions, some beat-up paperbacks.