'Spin Me Round' never really gets there
IFC
Movies absolutely can be shaggy. Director Jeff Baena has made several appealingly DIY-feeling efforts, including “Life After Beth” and “Joshy.”
But shaggy doesn’t mean unfinished, and “Spin Me Round,” a missed opportunity to modernize romantic fantasies, seems like it needed more time and focus for its Italian-set story to take off.
Amber (Alison Brie, who wrote the script with Baena), one of several managers in the Tuscan Grove restaurant chain who wins an all-expenses-paid trip, arrives for what she hopes is a glorious getaway filled with indescribable food and gorgeous scenery and maybe even a great romance — or at least a passionate fling and a story. “Under the Tuscan Sun,” this is not, though; Amber, Deb (Molly Shannon), Dana (Zach Woods), Fran (Tim Heidecker), Jen (Ayden Mayeri) and Susie (Debby Ryan) discover that their lodging is lousy and they’re not allowed to leave. On the subject of love, though: Amber does meet CEO Nick Martucci (Alessandro Nivola), who’s handsome and has a boat and seems quite taken with this single woman from Bakersfield, California, who’s never before traveled outside the U.S.
Of course, there are a lot of ways to attempt to inject reality into American fantasies about Europe. “Spin Me Round” is nowhere close to “Hostel.” It’s also not “Euro Trip” or “Before Sunrise,” the latter film having no reason to be listed among the others, really. In fact, “Spin Me Round” is trying, sort of, to consider what grand illusions no longer make sense in a contemporary world of gaslighting and online dating and experiences that look different in person vs. on screen.
Except aside from delivering a few laughs, the film neglects to plant the necessary seeds — the storytelling seems very foggy on what perceptions it’s even identifying and exposing — and too often feels annoying and aimless instead of insightful and clever. Instead of leaving room for beauty and connection alongside disappointment and phoniness, the movie settles for cynicism that’s actually detached from the reality it seeks to acknowledge.
Traveling can provide enormous opportunity for growth and excitement. It doesn’t always turn out that way. “Spin Me Round” can’t really figure out what it knows, what it doesn’t know, or how to refine the journey necessary to feel like you’ve gone anywhere.
C
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