"We are going to party all night!"
Hello everyone!
I mean, I can see the appeal of them for large market audiences, but the style has just never suited me and probably never will, if I'm being honest.
However, a good friend of mine recommended I watch it, specifically for Richard Madden, so I was like, you know what, okay, what have I got to lose, really?
Nothing much, because at the end of the experiment this is the kind of movie where you turn your brains off and end up hopefully laughing some while you're at it! Which in essence makes it a little bit similar to what Hallmark puts out, actually.
Now THERE'S a thought!
So without further ado, let's just hop right into Ibiza, shall we?
I know for sure that I don't have anything remotely similar to this in my repertoire so this one will be standing on its very own, however as a fair warning to anyone reading this: I will be doing a hopefully impartial recap first, then a very partial response at the bottom. So, you have been warned, it may be that you won't like my response.
But onwards!
Harper (Gillian Jacobs) works for a PR firm in New York and is basically fed up with her life and the work-home-work thing she has going on when her boss gives her the chance to prove herself and maybe get promoted by sending her on a weekend trip to Spain.
See, a massive sangria company there wants to sign them as their PR representatives in the United States, so this is a REALLY big thing, and Harper is actually pretty happy about it. Her two friends, Nikki and Leah, invite themselves along and the three girls end up in Europe, where Harper does in fact meet up with the company representative and introduces him to her two friends, as well.
He seems to immediately like Nikki and invites the girls out that evening, so they head on to a club where, through a sheer childish prank of a glowing body organ drawn on her face, Harper ends up backstage meeting Leo (Richard Madden), an international DJ who's playing there that evening.
The two share an immediate sort of connection and he gives her his phone number, before she ends up in the VIP lounge with the other two girls (how exactly they got there is never explained) and they're invited to a private party where Leo is also supposed to make an attendance.
This doesn't exactly happen, but all three girls do end up getting high and partying until one of them is found in a hot tub by the wife of the guy she's in there with, and she drags the other two out and into a taxi before they get stabbed with a knife (yup, really), and as they're eating a midnight snack before heading to the hotel, Leah sees that Leo is slated to appear on Ibiza.
Without further ado - despite the fact that Harper is told explicitly by her boss that the meeting she thought would take place at dinner is actually a morning one - they hop on an internal flight to Ibiza, get a ride from a rather friendly cab driver, and he contacts his niece who works at the club Leo will be at, so that she gets them in.
Once there, the girls split up, and Harper's phone is essentially dead so there's no way for the other two to contact her (it should be noted that the other two have also met up with some British soccer players on the plane there), and she's on her own to be on time for the morning flight.
Leo ditches his gig halfway through, something he's NEVER done before, and takes Harper back to his room where they wake up the next morning, VERY LATE FOR HER FLIGHT BACK TO BARCELONA, and very obviously unwilling to part ways even though she needs to hightail it back.
Meanwhile, Leah has coached Nikki through impersonating Harper so the deal can still go through, which might have even worked if the sangria people didn't immediately videocall Harper's boss in New York, which of course backfires on everything, and the girls pack up to go home. Once there, Harper is fired from her job, though she probably would have walked out with a few choice words anyway, and because the sangria people really liked her presentation, they'd much rather work with her directly and give her the boost she needs to start up her OWN PR company.
She also gets a call from Leo, inviting her to come to Tokyo where his next gig is, but she tells him she can't because of the new company she's putting together, but he could come to her in New York, maybe? He agrees, and the movie ends with Harper's friends advising maybe she should have gone to Tokyo anyway, and Harper very obviously trying to decide whether or not to just jump on a plane and go.
The end!
Alright, impartial review done, now we get to my personal thoughts on the movie and, like I said before, if you don't feel like being offended provided this was one you enjoyed, I suggest you stop reading and head off right now. Have you? Okay, bye bye!
Now, to business.
Like I mentioned, I can sort of see the appeal of this movie in which people basically shed all responsibility and just party their lives away, meeting cool new individuals all along as they go, but for me this was just one disaster waiting to happen after another.
For one, Harper's friends can hardly be called her friends. Not only do they just sort of bully their way onto her work trip, after she specifically tells them she needs to take this seriously, but one of them is actually blackmailing her co-worker and the other can find drugs no matter where she is and thoroughly enjoys getting high on them.
For another, Harper KNOWS this is a work weekend, but - just like her boss accuses her off at the end and yet the BOSS is the bad guy here - literally treats it like a Coachella party where she can do whatever she wants and chase after a guy just because.
Not to mention just how insane the situations they find themselves in are. Who just accepts an invitation to a private party from some sleazy older dude who looks like he might want to drug and rape you on the spot?! And then they fly off to Ibiza and get into a taxi that literally takes them to the middle of nowhere, but not even one second is spent on explaining hey, THIS IS NOT SOMETHING YOU SHOULD DO.
I won't even touch the drugs. Most of the movie is spent with these girls high as kites and apparently this means living your best life or something, and while I commend Harper's friends for trying to actually help her out when she's late to the meeting, that's literally only happened because they dragged her into the problematic situation in the first place, and it's her own damn fault for not treating the weekend as seriously as she should have.
Plus she becomes a juvenile when parting ways with her boss, spitting on her door handle and whatnot, and it's just like ... what does Leo SEE in this girl?
Honestly, this movie tried being funny and cute but only really became very odd and extremely problematic, because even just one instance like in this movie can lead up to some serious consequences in real life. I think the actors, while good, have definitely not picked well for this one, and while it may have performed okay on Netflix, I fast-forwarded through it and finished it in somewhere between 30 to 40 minutes.
I don't think I'm going to say anymore. The movie is ridiculous, belligerent and completely ignorant of personal safety, and also who in their professional life, or in their late twenties - early thirties even ACTS like this all the time? Suffice to say there was not enough Madden in this one to make it worth while.
Sadly, cannot recommend, not even for him.
xx
*images and video not mine
No comments:
Post a Comment