Review: Set It Up

It's no great stretch to believe that Set It Up could have served as a vehicle for Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan during their romantic comedy heyday. It's a wonderfully old-fashioned rom-com that's fuelled by terrific and effortless chemistry between its two winsome leads, stellar supporting turns, and a breezy pace that never fails to engage.

Harper (Zoey Deutch) and Charlie (Glen Powell) are both beleaguered assistants saddled with tyrannical bosses. Harper works for the fearsome Kirsten (Lucy Liu), an acclaimed sports reporter who has recently started her own site. Aspiring writer Harper desperately wants to pitch a story that her boss would publish, but she's so busy being Kirsten's lackey that she barely has time to concentrate on her own life. Charlie, meanwhile, just wants to spend time with his model girlfriend Suze (Joan Smalls), but he's too occupied surfing the ever-changing moods of his temperamental boss Rick (Taye Diggs).

After an after office hours meet-cute at the lobby of the building in which they both work, the two decide to hatch a plan. If they can somehow get their bosses to fall in love, then they might be able to get their own lives back on track. It's no easy task - both Kirsten and Rick are raging workaholics but, as Harper points out to Charlie, they control every second of their bosses' schedules so they can get them to do nearly anything they want. Though Harper goes out on a series of Tinder dates and Charlie finally has time to spend with Suze, their matchmaking machinations bring them closer together, initially as friends and eventually as something much more.

It's easy to root for Harper and Charlie since it's obvious from the jump that they were made for one another. Yet director Claire Scanlon and writer Katie Silberman let their relationship unfold at its own pace, enjoying the characters and the actors delighting in each other's company, and avoid throwing any silly and unnecessary obstacles their way. There's a underlying believability that girds the film even when it ventures into the rare gross-out gag like Kirsten and Rick being trapped with a claustrophobic delivery man who needs to relieve himself right there and then. The film doesn't hesitate to tweak some rom-com tropes, such as Kirsten suddenly being seen as a better woman now that she has a man or Charlie racing to the airport to deliver a huge and very public declaration.

Diggs and Liu are so entertaining that the film makes one appreciate them all over again, but the real stars of the show are undoubtedly Deutch and Powell, both of whom are tremendously relatable and endearing and make a case for the continued survival of the genre.

Set It Up

Directed by: Claire Scanlon

Written by: Katie Silberman

Starring: Zoey Deutch, Glen Powell, Lucy Liu, Taye Diggs, Titus Burgess, Pete Davidson, Jon Rudnitsky, Meredith Hagner, Joan Smalls