There were a lot of films like “Your Place or Mine” released in 2003, therefore that’s the year shown accurately. Subtitles with a “life of their own” call attention to the 2003isms in the shot. Your Place or Mine stars with a zoom-in on Peter (Kutcher) and Debbie (Witherspoon) feverishly face-mashing.
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In 2023, Peter and Debbie are still the best of friends. Even after the one and only time their genitalia touched. They have constant and extensive communication. She has a 13-year-old son named Jack (Wesley Kimmel) and a crazy neighbor named Zen who helps her garden.
She lives in Los Angeles and is a divorcee (Steve Zahn). Peter single guy living in New York City who has a lot of girlfriends thanks to his successful consulting job and the usage of dumb phrases like “incentivization.” His apartment seems like it cost at least fifteen or twenty million dollars. Deb and Pete were going to stay together while she took an accounting course in New York City. But, her babysitter bailed and Pete lost his job, so he offered to watch Jack in Los Angeles. Their flights essentially crossed paths over Kansas.
So that we don’t have to switch gears as the movie does between the two time periods, let’s break this down into two concise summaries.
Peter, first:
After dating for six months, she broke up with him because she realizes their relationship was doomed. Deb has been overcoming Jack, who has numerous food sensitivities. When he visits her house, he finds it covered with sticky notes.
Because of her fear for her son’s safety, Jack’s mother forbids him from playing hockey. This further adds to his difficulty in making friends. Pete believes that bribing Jack with a Porsche convertible, a luxury suite at a Kings game, and an invitation to try out for the hockey team behind his mother’s back will help Jack overcome his mama’s-boy tendencies and social isolation. His companion Alicia (Tig Notaro) is constantly wandering into the frame, providing him with ample opportunities for humorous repartee. Pete and Jack get along great. He mulls over his busy but loveless dating life wait a minute, is there a torch in his pocket?
In New York, meantime, Deb is enjoying a rare moment of freedom from her role as a stay-at-home mother. Pete introduces her to Minka (Zo Chao), one of his girlfriends and a terminally blasé cosmopolitan who doesn’t seem to have anything going on because she’s always strolling into the frame ready for witty conversation or a hangout sesh with Old Navy Denim Deb and her “beautiful Gen-X earth mama thing.”
Theo, Deb’s favorite book publisher, happens to be at the bar when they arrive (Jesse Williams). She has read all of his works, including the ones that didn’t do well. Deb is a true bibliophile. She succeeds to the extent of getting a date with the guy. Pete doesn’t bake crap, but she finds his unpublished novel in the oven. Never mind that Pete and Deb claimed to have no secrets.
And naturally, she reads it, and it’s amazing, and he brings the book to Theo, and Theo loves the book, and presumably loves her, too, because who wouldn’t? In addition to being a total sweetheart, she also happens to be very witty and insightful. But. But! Could it be that Pete has been lighting the way for the past two decades? …and wait a minute, is she toting one as well?
Your Place or Mine is now available for streaming on Netflix.
