’The Other Zoey’ Review: Chemistry Duels Compatibility in a Formulaic but Diverting Romantic Comedy
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As if paying penance for starring in all five “After” films to date — a series that’s been criticized for glamorizing toxic, controlling relationships à la “Twilight” and “50 Shades” before it — Josephine Langford now dallies on the decidedly wholesome side of romantic complication in “The Other Zoey.” This innocuous comedy, hinging on a gimmicky plot contrivance, doesn’t transcend formula even when it’s winking at the clichés it caves to. Still, it’s a pleasant enough diversion for those who want familiar genre beats sounded by the usual attractive actors in the customary attractive settings. That audience seems unlikely to stampede Brainstorm Media’s limited theatrical release on Friday, as this is exactly the sort of comfort-food fare one expects to stream at home — an option arriving November 10th.
Dividing campus life rigidly between eggheads and airheads, Matthew Tabak’s screenplay places heroine Zoey (Langford) in the first camp: She’s a computer science major at Queens University in Charlotte, introduced humorlessly deflating a classmate’s presentation on St. Valentine and his spinoff holiday. Our heroine doesn’t believe in romantic love, only in compatibility as defined by shared interests. Naturally, she’s created a matchmaking app to facilitate such pairings, though that doesn’t sound like much fun to her unimpressed peers, including otherwise supportive flatmate Elle (Mallori Johnson).
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Zoey is so left-brained in her analytical and entrepreneurial outlook, she scarcely notices when a stray soccer ball brings star athlete Zach (Drew Starkey) apologetically into her orbit. He’s cute, even flirty, but an apparently dumb jock is not what she’s looking for. By contrast, an eerily like-minded question at a lecture from stranger Miles (Archie Renaux) definitely gets her pulse pounding. Unfortunately, he vanishes before she can introduce herself.
A encounter at the bookstore where Zoey works provides another awkward moment with Zach, who forgets his credit card upon leaving. Running to return it, she witnesses his bike getting hit by a car, hurtling him to the pavement. Once he comes to, with a concussion and some short-term-memory amnesia, he recognizes her as Zoey. Fair enough. It takes a while for her to realize he actually thinks she’s a different Zoey (Maggie Thurmon) — the one he’s already going out with. The confusion gets amplified by his parents (Andie MacDowell, Patrick Fabian) not having met that Zoey yet, so they also mistake this chance acquaintance for his new girlfriend. Our Zoey is thwarted in explaining the mixup, until she makes a fateful impulse decision to let it ride a while longer — because she’s discovered Miles, actually a visiting MIT grad-student brainiac, is in fact Zach’s cousin and current houseguest.
Ergo a ruse winds up being acted out on a family skiing vacation she’s suddenly invited on, which means canceling a trip to see her own recently-divorced mother (Heather Graham). Very mild hilarity ensues, as Zoey proves hapless on the slopes, and in other ways doesn’t live up to her billing. Meanwhile alterna-Zoey, a shrill brat on vacation with her own parents in Bermuda, struggles in vain to contact trophy boyfriend Zach. (Conveniently, he’s been forbidden from using any “screens,” including phones, while recovering.) Langford’s Zoey does prove shockingly good at vocabulary, math, chess, and other things that duly attract Miles. But he does not turn out to be much of a catch after all. She’s just beginning to realize how very nice — and even kinda smart — Zach himself is when the whole charade blows up in her face.
The subsequent final half hour is pretty perfunctory, with inevitable “walking around being sad” montages and such, accompanied by on-the-nose soundtrack choices. Those who expect love to triumph for the fadeout are hardly in for a surprise. Still, even at its most trite, “The Other Zoey” has enough plusses to keep viewers reasonably diverted. Director Sara Zandieh, whose prior feature “A Simple Wedding” (2018) offered similar fare in a more “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” vein of culture-clash comedy, maintains a lively pace that skims past the material’s general lack of inspiration. The bright television look is standard (diverging only at a colorfully lit school-dance climax) but glossy, with North Carolina locations adding a smidgen of regional flavor.
The veterans cast as parents aren’t given anything very interesting to do. Other supporting figures are mostly one-note, including Olive Abercrombie as the inevitable sass-mouthed little sister to Zach. But Starkey is charming, his manner as well as looks a bit reminiscent of both Dax Shepard and Owen Wilson. And Langford manages to to make the protagonist likable and convincing, despite not really being written as either. The film’s best section is when these two start to warm up to each other — culminating in another rote montage, yet the ingratiating performers drum up enough chemistry to make it work. It’s actually disappointing when plot mechanics must pry them apart, because we enjoy them enjoying each other’s company.
While it’s implied that love-hungry Elle does indeed get it on with a food-delivery dreamboat (Jorge Lopez), “The Other Zoey” is for the most part so scrubbed of all racier aspects to young-adult life, it comes as a jolt when exactly one f-bomb is dropped. Ditto a passing reference to polyamory — a concept our heroine frowns upon, of course. She may be a math whiz, but she’s not into that kind of equation.
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