Worth: $15.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Chelsea Peretti, Susan Kent, Nadia Tonen, Kate Lynch, David Rossetti, Bill Carr, Jonathan Watton
Intro:
A romance grounded in bracing realism about dating and group attitudes… works as a naturally-funny and just-loose-enough rebuttal to Bridget Jones
Even for a feeling as universal as love, its media portrayal (cinema in particular) is often skewed towards a singular idea: the ‘perfect mate’ and that everyone is destined to find theirs in their lifetime; not being able to do so is a personal failing.
Women tend to get the lion’s share of scrutinisation in this regard, with far too many films positing that pairing up with a guy solves all of pre-existing problems – it’s the lancing of such pretences that makes Spinster a refreshing watch.
The poking at the safe and ultimate ineffectiveness of formulas echoes through not just the personal journey of 39-year-old Gaby (Chelsea Peretti), but also her stand-up-aspiring brother Alex (David Rossetti), who claims he has comedy down to a literal formula. Between them, the scope of cultural expectations blossom forth, highlighting how being pigeon-holed based on relationship status is a condescendingly narrow view of just about anyone, let alone someone who is tired of the pity – Gaby.
An aspiring chef, loving aunt, and recently back on the single’s market, Chelsea embodies Gaby with a lot of real-world, ‘stop preaching to me’ energy, employing a sardonic perspective on the world, and balancing it with the push-and-pull of whether she’ll find love and even if she’s interested in looking for it in the first place. As described in the greatest romance novel of all time (Douglas Adams’ So Long And Thanks For All The Fish), falling in love is a lot like trying to fly: the trick is not to think about it. But when you’re surrounded by people who keep insisting that this is the only road to happiness, and how bleeding selfish you are for not taking it… it’s hard to think about anything else.
A romance grounded in bracing realism about dating and group attitudes, Spinster works as a naturally-funny and just-loose-enough rebuttal to Bridget Jones and Lily Allen’s 22 approach to the titular label. It’s feminist in that it’s all about a woman finding happiness on her own terms, rather than those mandated by others. It also gestures at one of the better metaphors for those kinds of societal expectations: being pushed into the dating space to find a supposed ‘perfect match’ is like being told to make a scarf out of the itchiest fabric possible, and then getting shamed because you can’t stand to wear the bloody thing.
