What a TERRIBLE movie. Like on every level, bad.
Not polarizing. Not misunderstood. Just bad.
I don't even know how to describe it much beyond that. It’s all just so weirdly flat. It was like watching these beautiful NPCs trying to simulate dating and romance while getting stuck in some sort of logic loop.
The dialogue was offensively bad – it felt like some sort of financial-bro erotic fanfiction. Dakota Johnson's character is this high-end matchmaker, and EVERY SINGLE line she delivers emphasizes this corny economics language... everything is salary figures, value metrics, unicorn nomenclature – if a Salesforce dashboard were a movie:
"She's high risk, low ROI."
"They have poor compatibility percentages."
"You've got 6 inches of heigh on him – double your valuation."
CRINGE. It's so scripted and rehearsed that the movie completely loses any sense of emotional realism. The LOVE-AS-A-MARKET schtick gets REALLY OLD, REALLY FAST.
And no one is gonna convince me that this was satire. It's not (although it does feel like it could be sponsored by Salesforce... which honestly if this was some 4-dimensional sponsored content by Benioff that would be kind of sick). It's just a REALLY bad movie.