Your Place or Mine

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.

Clearly the journey is always more important than the destination when it comes to romantic comedies, but there's barely a twist or detour or even a pothole ...

[Tig Notaro](/cast-and-crew/tig-notaro). (Seriously, name a Cars song, and it’s in this movie, including “ [Drive](/reviews/drive-2011)” while Peter is ... [Wesley Kimmel](/cast-and-crew/wesley-kimmel)). Split screens show that Debbie lives in a cluttered and colorful Los Angeles Craftsman while Peter lives in a sleek and spacious Brooklyn condo overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge. Even though they live across the country from each other, they still talk every day in some form, and while their conversations are breezy, they lack a believable spark. McKenna also wrote the far superior Oscar nominee “ [The Devil Wears Prada](/reviews/the-devil-wears-prada-2006).” Her latest film never comes close to reaching those heights in terms of sharp dialogue or richly drawn characters, but it also isn’t aiming that high.

Arriving just in time for Valentine's Day 2023 is Netflix's latest romantic comedy starring Reece Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher.

Let us know in the comments below! - Bye Bye Love – The Cars Below is the full soundtrack for all of the composed music and songs heard throughout Your Place or Mine.

"Your Place or Mine" is Netflix's latest romantic comedy film, and its biggest achievement seems to have somehow gotten big names like Reese Witherspoon ...

The next morning, at the same time that Debbie arrives at the airport, Peter is there to catch his departing flight, and the two meet. Peter calls Debbie from the hospital and tells her about this, and the woman is very concerned and upset about the situation. This clearly announces to her that Peter has been in love with her, and she is overwhelmed by this because she, too, has always been in love with him, obviously. Peter is now a published writer, and Debbie is an editor at an indie publishing house, while Jack continues to play hockey regularly. She happens to meet with the editor of a recognized publishing house, Theo and gives him a copy of the novel. However, he is unable to go through with it with Debbie on his mind, and as he explains to their common friend Alicia, Peter has always been in love with his best friend. Or, it could also be that the novel was a projection of how he wanted his relationship with his father to be since, in reality, it was one of being abandoned and hurt at a young age. This seems to be the reason why he ended the possible romance between him and Debbie twenty years ago, as he did not want to get attached to the woman. Although the boy is allergic to basketball courts and to grass on football fields, he is very interested in playing hockey, but his mother does not allow him to do so as it involves risks and injuries. He directly tells Jack, though, that his father abandoned him and his mother when he was a young boy and then died in a road accident. Peter himself takes some time off his work and flies to Los Angeles to look after Jack so that Debbie can go to New York and attend her course. However, the two became close friends and continued to be best friends for the next twenty years.

Netflix's new modern-day rom-com "Your Place or Mine" was filmed in Los Angeles and New York City. It features a Dumbo apartment and a home in Echo Park.

“We wanted the New York section to be a really strong element because so much is about Debbie’s journey to New York and how those experiences reawaken her,” director of photography Florian Ballhaus said in the brief. Debbie’s house, found by location manager Veronique Vowell, is located in L.A.’s Echo Park neighborhood at the top of a 100-step hillside walkway. Special effects supervisor Ron Bolanowski and his team constructed the people mover from scratch. [New York City](https://www.housebeautiful.com/lifestyle/a36902116/what-to-do-in-new-york-city/) and [Los Angeles](https://www.housebeautiful.com/lifestyle/a36803484/what-to-do-in-los-angeles/) have long been the backdrops of [iconic rom-coms](https://www.housebeautiful.com/lifestyle/entertainment/a41922230/falling-for-christmas-netflix-filming-locations/). Another pivotal location in the film is LAX. He added: “It’s a very hip and trendy place, which Peter would be attracted to.

Aline Brosh McKenna on making 'Your Place or Mine' starring Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher film and potential The Devil Wears Prada sequel.

In a funny way, I am that wide-open person that I was in my early 30s. Someone left a pizza in the oven for so long that mold was growing out of the box and onto the grills. I’m old enough that I saw the good old days, and I can tell you that there are upsides now. It was a great experience for the first thing I ever shot. So it’s about following the trends in the business and about figuring out who you could put on your dance card who wants to dance that same mambo. Everything has changed so rapidly that the business needs to adjust to where we are now. But I was talking to someone the other day and he said, “I see your work as coming-of-age movies for adults.” I asked him if I could tuck that in my pocket, because that is how I see it. In a 2019 interview, you praised the “sky’s the limit” approach of TV over the corporate nature of film. I had a writing partner, Jeff Kahn, and we had a pilot called Young Americans for Disney and Fox. They’re why I fell in love with the movies I fell in love with. But there are some where I just handed over the script, hoping for the best. The movies that made me want to be a writer were the ones starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck.

Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher lead this Netflix romcom. Read Empire's review.

But ultimately, this is a romantic comedy that is neither especially romantic nor sufficiently comedic. It’s mildly refreshing to see a romance between characters in their 40s, people who have lived a life already, people old enough to acknowledge how you’re “dumb when you’re in your 20s” — even if said people are implausibly, impeccably, unrealistically attractive. [Aline Brosh McKenna](https://www.empireonline.com/people/aline-brosh-mckenna/) wraps itself in the comfort blanket of the genre tropes. If that is indeed what hooked you in, prepare to be disappointed, as they barely share a frame together for more than ten minutes, most of their interactions taking place in split screen phone conversations. Perhaps, in the current glut of quick, thoughtless [romcoms](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/romantic-comedies-best/) that the streamers are presently so beholden to, that shouldn’t be a surprise, but Your Place Or Mine never aspires to being more than being just aggressively fine. [Reese Witherspoon](https://www.empireonline.com/people/reese-witherspoon/) and [Ashton Kutcher](https://www.empireonline.com/people/ashton-kutcher/) — both of whom owe their early careers to romcoms, both of whom have shied away from lead roles in recent years — sharing the screen for the first time.

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

— 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. Replies a friend: “Obviously you don’t.” This is also a film that champions taking a chance, going for it, and not playing it safe. 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. [“Your Place or Mine”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JyfgkPMXk0) to see the sparks fly between Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher, you’ll be initially disappointed.

The Tamil heist thriller Thunivu is at the top of our list, and it's one of three new Netflix releases this week (including a rom-com with Ashton Kutcher and ...

This musical biopic follows the story of Whitney Houston’s rise to fame in the 1980s as one of her generation’s most talented singers. and it wants them to come upstairs. The ambiguity of the film’s terror, which depends much more on sensation than explicitly scary figures or monsters, grabbed some viewers by the throats. A celebrated documentarian, this is Diop’s first narrative feature, following a writer who attends the trial of a woman accused of murdering her child. Corsage also won Best Film at the London Film Festival, among a bevy of other wins and nominations on the festival circuit. Director Michelle Garza Cervera’s feature debut is a horror movie about a woman who has dreamed of being a mother, only to suspect something is off once she is finally pregnant. Krieps was a co-winner at Cannes under the category Un Certain Regard - Best Performance, and director Marie Kreutzer was also nominated at Cannes. In the movie, the gang reunites to take on a gigantic company called Amazin, run by a guy named Neil (Peter Serafinowicz). Sara (Laura Galán), an overweight teen who works behind the counter of a butcher shop, is bullied by a clique of local girls. note: Pete] be watching this weekend?” you have found your answer. This rom-com is about two friends who have very different lifestyles and swap houses and lives for a week. The Tamil heist thriller Thunivu is at the top of our list, and it’s one of three new Netflix releases this week (including a rom-com with Ashton Kutcher and Reese Witherspoon).

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.

Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher's friendship turns romantic in Netflix's Your Place or Mine, from Devil Wears Prada writer Aline Brosh McKenna.

Netflix attempts to rejuvenate the romantic-comedy genre by bringing together Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher for "Your Place or Mine," the directorial ...

RELATED: Perhaps there is also a reason why such a film is on a streaming platform, because its the type of movie you let run without ever paying full attention because you know how it all ends — thankfully the cheesiness is controlled, and emphasizes the importance of friendship even if commitment gets in the way. Witherspoon and Kutcher play Debbie and Peter, two individuals who hooked up one night and twenty years later are best friends that keep in touch even if there are on different ends of the country.

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.

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.