Netflix original movies are abundant. What else they are, though, remains unclear. Most weeks Netflix is rolling out multiple originals, and thanks to the company’s notorious refusal to release viewership numbers, we have very little idea how these movies are doing, or by what criteria they’re being judged.
A busy June at Netflix saw the release of Set It Up, an office-based romantic comedy that pairs young leads Zoey Deutch and Glen Powell as matchmakers for their overworked bosses (Lucy Liu and Taye Diggs). Charming and pleasingly formulaic, Set It Up charts the most optimistic path forward for what Netflix originals could be: showcases for young stars that the superhero and franchise-dominated box office is ignoring. Despite a less splashy set-up than many of the platform’s other first-run projects, it’s already become one the season’s buzziest films.
The premise of Set It Up betrays the movie’s every turn. Deutch’s Harper and Powell’s Charlie are two miserable corporate assistants in a midtown Manhattan overrun with overqualified, overworked and underpaid young people. Harper needs the approval of Kirsten (Liu), a prolific sports journalist who just launched her own website. Charlie doesn’t need approval from his hedge fund boss (Diggs) as much as he needs time off to consider whether he wants to take part in the world of making millions and treating people poorly. Harper and Charlie set out to manipulate their bosses into falling in love, and, against all odds, fall in love themselves.
The energy inside Set It Up is a harbinger of things to come for Deutch and Powell. The duo previously co-starred in Richard Linklater’s excellent college baseball film Everybody Wants Some!!, and if an early career Linklater performance is good for anything, it’s proving that an actor can walk-and-talk. Set It Up’s writer Katie Silberman and director Claire Scanlon took note, making their Netflix movie one of the chattiest of the year. Quickness of pace makes Deutch and Powell worthy partners, keeping the film moving as it runs through its conventional genre beats.
Deutch and Powell also have impressive slapstick chemistry. Deutch’s Harper is quick-twitched, racing from room to room, spouting snappy sentences with incredible efficiency. She has an extra empathetic mind, regularly crying at the fact of how dearly she loves sports. What Everybody Wants Some!! revealed and Set It Up makes use of is Deutch’s natural optimism, the confidence that her love story will work out. Deutch is an ever-believable performer: the sincerity of Harper’s admiration for her sportswriter boss is just as convincing as her crush on Charlie.
Charlie’s internal debate is whether to become a jerk because the work expects it of him. Cruelty doesn’t come naturally. All affect, Powell can’t get out a sentence without charming someone. His delivery borrows something from Matthew McConaughey and something from Jack Nicholson, every word out of his mouth sharper than it needs to be, and every physical act an explosion. Powell’s manic presence makes him the focal point of any scene in which he appears. Set It Up is the first movie wise enough to let him take up real space.
There’s an assuredness in Set It Up, a sense of trust in Deutch and Powell’s charisma to make the movie watchable. This was the foundation of a marketable movie for most of Hollywood’s history, until the last 10 years made recognizable, pre-existing intellectual property the top dog, relegating the stars.
We don’t know what Netflix expects out of its originals. The spirit of hiding viewership data strips away the box office pressures that control Hollywood studio thinking. Netflix originals don’t need to have strong opening weekends, they just need to start taking up space in the library.
The streaming giant has thus far dedicated its greatest promotional efforts to a number of sci-fi originals, movies that critics have largely written off. From Duncan Jones’ Blade Runner-esque Mute to Will Smith’s Bright to franchise thriller The Cloverfield Paradox, Netflix has swung, and no one can really say if it has missed. But Hollywood still makes profitable sci-fi movies that demand to be seen in theaters, leaving no gap for Netflix to fill. The majority of these genre offerings have also suffered from negative reviews with the aforementioned three films all failing to receive more then 26% on Rotten Tomatoes (in comparison, Set It Up boasts an almost perfect 94% rating).
Much has been made of the disappearance of Hollywood’s middle, the evaporation of everything from romcoms to detective thrillers (the last traditional romantic comedy to make over $100m at the US box office was Just Go With It in 2011). The decline of certain genre movies has meant a shrinking number of showy roles for up-and-coming actors, usually sending breakouts like Deutch and Powell to high-profile television or definitely indie territory.
Another consequence of the dying middle is the paucity of Hollywood movies that deal with the present. Sure, Marvel movies mostly take place in the modern day, but they use that setting to destroy our modern cities. When you compound the recession of movies about the here and now with the lack of new faces being hailed as movie stars, you get a Hollywood that feels definitively un-fresh.
Netflix gets credit for tackling both sides of this problem. The company hasn’t stopped making teenage stories since 13 Reasons Why briefly dominated the cultural conversation in spring 2017. June’s The Kissing Booth, which Netflix’s chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, insists is overwhelmingly popular, features a shoehorned Molly Ringwald cameo, making clear that Netflix wants its teen movie wave to have cross-generational appeal. The Kissing Booth is as forgettable as Set It Up is heartening, but both movies signal Netflix’s ambition to help bring up a new generation of leads.
Watching Deutch and Powell is rather exhilarating, the type of filmic experience after which you shut your laptop wondering when you can see them next. With a sequel already being touted, this could happen very soon. It also hints at a bright future for Netflix, creating the types of movies that can be easily rewatched, for no extra fee …
