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#Film Review: Netflix’s The Incredible Jessica James

Director: Jim Strouse

Rating: 2/5

This is a new film on Netflix, and it came up in my search stating “because of your interest in Naked”. I freaked out because I really did not like that film (see here), and while this film is better than Naked I was still disappointed.

Like I said in one of my previous blogs, these recommendations and matches on Netflix are not something one should ignore (see also here) because Netflix is usually right. But, even though the film was attached to Naked I gave it a go due to high matching score (95%).

I was not impressed unfortunately. I basically spent time watching the film constantly waiting for something major to happen only to find myself in a disbelief that the film actually ended. In a nutshell, the film goes blah blah blah, and you wait for something WOW to happen, but instead you get BOOM, it’s finished ladies and gentleman. In addition, I had to fight sleep a few times and once the film finally ended I slept for good three hours. I suppose this could be seen as an advantage for viewers who can’t sleep. Put this on, and you will be knocked down for sure.

In summary, Jessica James (Jessica Williams) is a theatre writer and director getting rejections for her plays, and going through a painful relationship breakup. She meets Boone (Chris O’Dowd) and they start a romantic relationship or some sort of a relationship where the only thing in common is stalking their exes on Instagram and Twitter. Ultimately, the relationship with some ups and downs works out and her career works out, but there is an abrupt development in the film.

Writers and directors simply did not develop the story enough and explored issues in details. Both career failures and relationship/marriage breakups are painful experiences, and we do not get to feel this pain. The relationship between Jessica and Boone also develops abruptly and the way it is developing is not showed in an appropriate way. For example, after he met with his ex wife and got caught by Jessica, this was simply not portrayed correctly. While everyone can understand how and why people go back to bad partners, these choices should have been explored in more details. Jessica’s reaction is quite frankly weird and nothing like a real life scenario.

In summary, there is very little story and very little development. If you choose to watch this, do not expect anything major and especially not a big story and exploration of feelings. Sadly, this is not it and we all better start paying more attention not just to matching scores but also links between films.

Thank you for reading.

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