“Someone Great” is another production from Gina Rodriguez, after “Jane the Virgin” and “Miss Bala.” Rodriguez plays Jenny Young, a New York City based writer who lands a job working for Rolling Stone in San Francisco. This causes her to make one of the most heartbreaking decisions of her life: leaving everyone she loves behind. Jenny lives up one last memorable night with her two best friends, Blair and Erin, as she attempts to get over the pain of breaking up with her boyfriend of nine years.
As I watched this incredibly quirky and romantic comedy, I was happy to see that it went back and forth within the timeline. It first starts out in a flashback, during the good old days where Jenny and Nate were happily in love. All of a sudden, the movie snaps back to reality, and we get the full scope of what happened between the couple.
I was happy that Jenny’s ex-boyfriend, Nate, was played by LaKeith Stanfield and not a typical Caucasian male. In real life, Rodriguez’s fiance is a fair-skin Puerto Rican who even made a cameo in the film.
I couldn’t help but connect my current relationship to Jenny and Nate’s past relationship pop-ups. While I was sitting in my living room, laughing along with Jenny, I envisioned myself in that exact scene, as if my boyfriend and I were all of a sudden on the screen. I love the power of the rom-com, especially since I’m a hopeless romantic.
Aside from the romantic aspect, the movie was great as a whole. I laughed at how cliche the storyline of the movie was but in a modern way. The movie didn’t bother to clean up the language. There might have been an exaggeration of cursing, but who doesn’t overly curse?
The way the characters acted was very realistic, too. Rather than forcing slang in their body language, in their tone and in their vocabulary, each actor possessed characteristics of how actual people behave in real life. When I say “actual people,” I mean it in a deeper context.
In the movie poster, the main actress is a Latina, followed by an African-American woman and a Caucasian woman. If this movie was made just 10 years ago, this would have been an all-white cast. Today, we are changing rules because representation matters.
Truth be told, I watch tons of movies, and I feel like there are millions of things that can change with the way certain people and topics are covered. As we see a shift in society, there is a shift in movies and television shows. With that, we are getting closer to the change we are fighting for.
Rodriguez is a Latina that gives representation to thousands of others that look like her, including me. I felt that her being not only the lead but also one of the producers is a major accomplishment. Her role, on and off screen, is one of the many steps toward this shift in how people of color are given the chance to be equally represented.
From left to right: DeWanda Wise, Gina Rodriguez and Brittany Snow star in Netflix’s new film “Someone Great.” Photo courtesy of Variety
There were little moments in the film that stuck out, like the scene where Jenny speaks English and Spanish to get her boyfriend to learn. When they played Selena Quintanilla’s “Dreaming of You,” I immediately lost it. That moment was the cherry on top.
From my first reaction when I watched the trailer to the end when I finished the movie, I was so glad I watched “Someone Great.” I find movies therapeutic, and with the storyline of this film hitting so close to home, I really think that others would learn a lesson in the end.
This movie is not only a rom-com but a movie about sisterhood, representation and teaches the lesson that no matter what heartbreak you may experience, the ones that love you will always be by your side.
