Film Pick of the Week: Your Place or Mine - Review by Yvette Huddleston

A lot of the film’s success is down to the stellar performances from Witherspoon and Kutcher, both gifted comic actors. They play their roles with an admirable lightness of touch which helps to paper over some of the more obvious plotholes and mute the cliché klaxon somewhat. Witherspoon is kooky, over-protective single mother Debbie who lives in LA and works as an accountant at the high school of her 13-year-old son Jack (Wesley Kimmel), while Kutcher is Peter, a successful New York-based brand manager and man about town.

Debbie is heading out to New York for a week to complete an accounting course and sit an exam and has arranged to stay with Peter; both are looking forward to spending a little time together. To cover childcare, Debbie has made arrangements with her ex-husband’s actress girlfriend who has agreed to look after Jack while she is away, but she then goes back on that promise when she is offered an acting job. Peter, who coincidentally happens to be between jobs and girlfriends, comes to the rescue by offering to fly over to LA for the week and take care of Jack instead.

So, Debbie has a swanky Manhattan apartment all to herself while Peter is about to learn the tough realities of parenting. Needless to say Peter breaks some of Debbie’s rules and Jack gets to have a bit more freedom than he usually has, while Debbie finds some joy of her own when she meets handsome publisher Theo (Jesse Williams). She also discovers a manuscript in Peter’s apartment – he had once been an aspiring writer, as she had been an aspiring editor – which is the conduit to some big life changes… Ok, so there are no surprises here. There will be complications and misunderstandings along the way but a happy ending is never in doubt. Undemanding, cuddly entertainment – it’s not going to win any prizes, but as a midweek pick-you-up it’s perfect.