“The Drop wants to be more funny and insightful than it is, and it ultimately delivers a disappointing satire on love and relationships.”
- Impressive ensemble
- More awkward than funny
- Cast never really gels
- Starts okay, but loses momentum
Sometimes you can bring together a group of very funny people and still have a tough time getting a laugh.
That’s the lesson that bubbles to the surface in The Drop, director Sarah Adina Smith’s awkward comedy about a couple whose plans for a romantic, tropical getaway take a turn when one of them accidentally drops a friend’s baby and sets a series of unfortunate events in motion. It’s a unique, attention-grabbing premise for a film, and with a cast filled with talented comedic actors, it has plenty of potential. Unfortunately, the laughs are few and far between in The Drop, which never quite settles on the sort of film it wants to be and quickly loses momentum after its early, baby-dropping hook.
The film’s ensemble cast is led by Anna Konkle (Pen15) and Jermaine Fowler (Coming 2 America), who portray couple Lex and Mani, respectively, as they attempt to turn a friend’s tropical, destination wedding into a romantic opportunity to become parents themselves. They’re joined on the trip by a group of narcissistic, obnoxious friends played by Utkarsh Ambudkar (Ghosts), Jillian Bell (22 Jump Street), Aparna Nancherla (Space Force), Joshua Leonard (Humpday), Jennifer Lafleur (Lamb), and Robin Thede (A Black Lady Sketch Show). After Lex accidentally drops the engaged couple’s infant daughter, the trip quickly spirals into a relationship-challenging ordeal as the pair begin to question their future together while contending with their friends’ self-obsessed quirks.
Scattered within the film’s twisted satire of love and intimacy are a few funny moments, too, peppered amid jokes that don’t quite land.
Identity crisis
Tonally, The Drop pivots between raunchy romantic comedy and surreal satire, with scenes of waves crashing onto a beach and other imagery dividing the narrative into chapters.
There’s an overwhelming sense that the Drop has big, important things it wants to say about our understanding of romance and commitment, and the collaboration and compromises it takes to maintain a loving relationship between partners and friends in today’s society. When it comes to getting the point across, however, the film regularly falls back on dick jokes and a mix of either strangely absurd or far-too-easy humor to distract from how little it actually says about any of these topics.
This awkward uncertainty in the sort of film it’s trying to be runs through the rest of The Drop, too.
