87 min | R | May 22, 2020 | Netflix
A couple on the brink of breaking up runs over a man on a bicycle and lands in the middle of a murder. They spend one frantic night trying to clear their names before the police pin it on them. The plot is an excuse to watch two funny people argue.
Leilani and Jibran have been together four years and the relationship is dying. They bicker in the car on the way to a party. Then they strike a man on a bicycle and a stranger commandeers their vehicle to run him down again. Now there is a body and the couple assumes the police will blame them. The Lovebirds is a murder mystery only on the surface. Underneath it is a film about two people deciding whether their love is worth saving, and the crime is the pressure that forces the question.
Issa Rae plays Leilani as quick and combative. She fires off accusations faster than Jibran can absorb them. Kumail Nanjiani plays Jibran as the anxious overthinker who treats a getaway like a logic problem. The two performers talk over each other in a way that feels like a real couple rather than a comedy duo. Paul Sparks plays Moustache, the menacing stranger, with a flat calm that the film uses for a few good scares. Anna Camp plays Edie, a society wife with a secret, and commits to the absurdity without winking.
Michael Showalter directs his second feature with Nanjiani after The Big Sick. He shoots New Orleans at night and lets the neon and the empty streets do the work of making the city feel dangerous. The script by Aaron Abrams and Brendan Gall moves the couple through a sequence of set pieces, a frat house, an apartment, a masked secret society. The editing cuts tight around the dialogue and trims the dead air so the arguments keep their rhythm. The plot mechanics barely hold together. Showalter knows this and keeps the camera on the actors instead of the clues.
The Lovebirds works when it forgets the mystery and lets Rae and Nanjiani talk. The relationship comedy is sharp and specific. The crime plot is a machine built to keep them in the same room. The film never reaches the emotional weight of The Big Sick because the stakes here are borrowed from a genre that does not care about the couple. What remains is two charming actors making a thin premise watchable. That is enough for one night and not much longer.