Everything I Thought While Watching ‘The Perfect Match’

Let’s try something new. Instead of a normally constructed review, I’m going to list all the thoughts that came to my mind while watching “The Perfect Match.” The plot follows a career womanizer (Terrence J) who in order to win a bet with his friends (Donald Faison and Robert Christopher Riley), he must date one woman (Cassie Ventura) until his friend’s wedding. Shockingly, he gets feelings and maybe wants something more, blah blah. Ok. Let’s get going.

[a quick note: I didn’t hate this movie; I have a guilty pleasure soft spot for rom-coms. This is watchable enough and nice to look at, but oh my god, my friend and I tore it apart in the theater. I will be going over some plot points but will mark the one genuine spoiler I give. But you don’t care because you won’t see this movie]

-a woman recognizes Terrence J for the photos he posts on Instagram. Not only are photographers not celebrities, how would she recognize him from pictures of other things he photographs?

-Terrence J (I hate that I have to keep typing his full name because its awkward to simply put “J” and I’m not buddies with him, so just “Terrence” is out) brings a girl named Fawn to dinner with his friends and one asks her “so it’s Fawn, like a baby deer?” and Fawn replies “no, like ‘Dawn’ but with an F.” Oh boy, so there are the types of jokes we’re in for.

-That dinner scene is full of nothing but character introductions and backstory building, and lasts way too long. It’s awkwardly paced as hell (little did I know, that was a precursor for the entire film). Terrence’s friend brought a girl to set him up with, but he says he only does one night stands. At least smile and no thanks, bro.

-Terrence J [eyeroll] just hugged Paula Patton and said, “hi, sister!” Woof. And I thought the dinner scene had forced characterization. My friend stares at the screen and says, “damn it, Paula, you’re better than this.”

-A girl storms up to Terrence and is mad he never called her back. Patton (who is of course a therapist) calms her down and says she likely has daddy issues. She gives the girl her business card, but then says “I doubt you can afford me.” Great way to earn a client. Also, I made a mental note that this girl has a lot of tattoos.

-A white guy with a neck tattoo just rode in on a Segway (in an office). He did the fake handshake, “too slow” thing. Ok, we get it, the guy is a tool.

-Oh, the score just changed and we see a girl walking out of the boss’ office in slow motion. I bet we see her again.

-One of Terrence’s clients “can’t engage in angry facial expressions” so her assistant does them for her. Reminded me about Key & Peele’s “Anger Translator Luther.” I miss Key & Peele…

-Terrence and his friends (post-“Scrubs” life has been hard onDonald Faison) see the girl at some sort of juice drink store (same score and slow motion, in case it wasn’t obvious). They make the bet that he can’t only date one girl until the one friend’s wedding. Terrence says, “so I date just her, but I can also smash other girls…” The only time my friend or I ever did anything more than smile.

-After a first date at a burger joint they meet at his house. What ensues is a PG-13 sex scene in an R-rated movie set to R&B music. I felt awkward eating popcorn during this scene.

-Terrence owns wine that they drink on “House of Cards.” The girl (Eva) makes a comment about Claire Underwood and Terrence is shocked she watches the show, as if it’s not one of the most popular things in pop culture right now

-Oh, Faison and his wife are trying to get pregnant. Good, because we needed subplots.

-I turn to my friend and say, “it’s only been 30 minutes.” He responds, “I’m confused what this movie is about.”

-Terrence goes to a club with his friends in another overlong and pointless scene. My friend leans over to me and says, “I may be taking a nap soon.”

-Terrence talks to rapper French Montana and they say “man” seven times in the first 30 seconds. I look over and my friend is resting his eyes.

-Everyone has in this movie has a tattoo.

-Terrence wants to photograph Eva, but she doesn’t want to be seen by his “thousands of Instagram followers” so he says he’ll shoot it in ways that hide her face. What ensues is a montage of his taking pictures of her around Los Angeles, all but one of the photos he takes perfectly and clearly showing her face.

-My friend is awake, but his hood is up and he’s invested in staring at his peanut M&Ms.

-The couple arrives home to find Faison, who was kicked out of his house by his wife because he was happy there was nothing wrong with his sperm. It was at this point I went to the bathroom. When I get back I ask what happened and my friend says, “literally nothing.”

-[SPOILER] Terrence and his friends go to tuxedo fitting. There, he sees Eva trying on a wedding dress, and he runs and gets drunk. Except no one in the theater recognized it was her. I’m not kidding, everyone (all six of us) were looking around asking each other what just happened, and it wasn’t until Terrence arrives home drunk and Eva is standing there and he yells at her for being engaged and using him that we connected the dots.

-It took an hour 15 to get to some sort of conflict.

-[IT’S SAFE] Terrence is at a bar and the girl next to him has a tattoo. Literally every character in this movie has a tattoo.

-Nice shot of Los Angeles. Probably the best part of the film, to be honest, it looks pretty.

-That white guy with the neck tattoo has never not been on a Segway, and has never not been annoying.

-Terrence is all depressed. Paula says he avoids relationships because he never accepted his parent’s death. Those things are about as correlated as “watching Kevin Spacey films will make you avoid fast food.”

-Faison and his wife get pregnant. Hurray. Would hate for that subplot to go untied.

-This film is wrapping up and I’m almost positive we are not going to figure out whatever happened to Eva.

-The woman behind us says, “I bet the girl shows up to.” My friend goes, “I guess she saw the poster.” I retort, “I guess she’s seen any movie ever.”

-Oh, Eva showed up. Thank God they’re going to get closure.

-Woman: “I knew it!” Friend: “she must be new to movies.”

-Terrence sees the friend who he met at the dinner at the start of the film and they strike up a convo. Didn’t this girl hear him say relationships are dumb and he would just rather get with models?

-The movie is over and the title just showed up on screen. Thank goodness, I was worried I just sat through the wrong movie the past hour and a half.

-The woman tries to clap. Under his breath my friend sighs and says, “damn it, lady, don’t…”

-They have clips that apparently weren’t good enough to fit into the 96 minute runtime, one that has a joke better than anything in the movie that preceded it. Never a good sign.

-When neck tattoo Segway guy’s name shows up on the cast list my friend says, “is he in anything else? Because he is intolerable.”

Ok, so I hope you enjoyed this. Look, despite my roasting, I didn’t hate “The Perfect Match.” Nor did my friend, despite admitting it was boring. It is shot and plays out like a mid-2000’s rom-com, and is predictable as much. You can do better than this movie. But if you want to grab a few drinks and friends when it hits DVD, it may be a blast.

Critics Rating: 4/10