Starring Lacey Chabert and Brennan Elliot
***SPOILER ALERT***
Dana and Mark (Chabert and Elliot) are high-powered, happily married NYC lawyers. They’ve taken on new clients, the Nobles, a pair of bitter reality TV stars seeking a divorce. Dana represents Tabby (Stephanie Bennett), while Mark’s client is Brett (Clayton James). Dana and Mark want to see a swift, amicable divorce, but Tabby and Brett butt heads over assets and everything else, fraying their lawyers’ nerves. Arbitration fails, and the case is destined for court. Meanwhile, intel from trusted sources suggests that Tabby and Brett are hiding money from each other. As court begins, Dana discovers that Gwen (Mariesa Crouse), who was Tabby’s best friend until the TV star discovered that Brett was cheating on her with Gwen, has suddenly acquired property, probably from Brett. But the biggest surprise for the lawyers is yet to come.
PROS
I’d been looking forward to seeing Chabert and Elliot reunited. But His & Hers, meant to be a comedy, wasn’t entertaining. I don’t blame the actors for this; all four major players are so much better than this movie would lead you to believe. It was a poor vehicle for them, and the script was a colossal disappointment. For the first time ever, I have no pros in a review.
CONS
An annoyingly lovey-dovey relationship. Married for seven years, Dana and Mark were so comfortably settled that they were dull, and also sappy together. They used lawyerly language to air minor grievances about each other and bought each other cutesy gifts. They talked too much about their relationship and how they always managed to work things out, which wasn’t exactly riveting. The film would have had some much-needed tension if their relationship had been more strained because they were working on Tabby and Brett’s case, but the closest things got to strained was a brief outburst about the results of their background checks—he’d been in jail, and she’d been married. But immediately after this, they kissed and made up. What bugged me the most was Mark calling Dana “babe” constantly—and talking to her almost as if she was a child when trying to reassure her that she could handle being in court. His manner sometimes came off as patronizing.
Vacuous reality TV show stars. If you’d scratched the surface of Tabby and Brett, you would have found nothing underneath. Their lives revolved around their looks and courting publicity. The shallowness and self-absorption was supposed to be hilarious but was only tedious. Tabby and Brett were entirely one-dimensional, and it would have helped if there’d been much more to the Nobles than met the eye—if they’d had redeeming qualities, for example.
Over and over again. Let’s talk about repetition, as the talky script by Susan Black and Joie Botkin was full of this. There were many conversations between Dana and Mark about the question of whether they should have a child—Dana wasn’t certain she was ready, while Mark wanted a baby with all his heart. In these chats, they said pretty much the same things again and again. And every night at home they ate popcorn together! Dana always met with Tabby in her client’s home, while Mark always saw Brett at the gym. One right after the other, Tabby and Brett made identical requests of their lawyers—for a background check on the other person, for example—or made the exact same accusations about each other—that the other person was cheating, or hiding money. There were two arbitration scenes in which no progress was made. All this repetition made this movie boring and predictable.
A cheesy so-called twist. At court, Gwen told Tabby that she was all Brett talked about, and that he wanted her back. Just like that, the TV stars reunited. They blamed their lawyers for pressuring them into divorce, and Brett kneeled down and proposed to Tabby, even though they were still married. This was so idiotic. And it came as absolutely no surprise that their divorce was a stunt they’d cooked up to get more publicity; it turned out they were launching a new show.
Everything that happened after the twist. This film should have ended once it came to light that Tabby and Brett had pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes (except for Dana and Mark’s bosses, who’d arranged the whole ridiculous ruse). But no, there were more eye-rolling developments to come, which dragged the movie on beyond all reason. Worst of all was when Gwen met TJ (Kaden Connors), a restaurant employee; within a New York minute, she’d asked him to marry her. They then appeared on Tabby and Brett’s new marriage counseling show to needle the unrepentant pair about hiding money from each other and having background checks done.
My grade for His & Hers: F (I just didn’t see the point of it all.)
Caroline Kaiser is a professional book editor who specializes in fiction and memoirs, and she’s been guiding writers toward publication since 2007. Caroline is also the author of two ghostly mystery novels, Virginia’s Ghost and The Spirits of South Drive. Before she embarked on an editing and writing career, she spent many years working in a Toronto auction house as an antiques appraiser. Apart from curling up on the couch and drinking tea as she watches Hallmark movies, Caroline enjoys baking and exploring London, Ontario, the picturesque city she now calls home. Her website is www.carolinekaisereditor.com.
