- Title: The Valet
- IMDb: link
Valet is an odd film for a romantic comedy. Rather than having two people fall head-over-heels for each other, the 2022 film is about how the time two strangers spend together teaches each of them to stay away from the people that are wrong for them. We start, not surprisingly, with a contrived situation in which, to protect her secret tryst with a married man (Max Greenfield), Olivia (Samara Weaving) convinces a valet named Antonio (Eugenio Derbez) to pretend to be the starlet’s new boyfriend in hopes of putting the paparazzi off the real story.
Although an eventual friendship develops between the pair, at no point does the script by Bob Fisher and Rob Greenberg (based on the French film from by Francis Veber) attempt to push a romantic agenda between the film’s two stars. Instead, the experience helps Antonio to move on from pursuing his ex (Marisol Nichols), in favor of the woman (Diany Rodriguez) he should be dating, and pushes Olivia to break things off with her married boyfriend.
Weaving doesn’t have to work too hard to play the talented star, but her best moments come when Olivia shares time with Antonio’s family and takes back some self-respect in an admittedly predictable ending. For a film with all of the trappings and cliches of a romantic comedy, other than the romance, The Valet has its share of heart while finding a way to break out of the mold just enough to make it a curiosity for fans of the genre.
