Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Seriously Single’ on Netflix, a South African Rom-Com That Looks a Lot Like Hollywood

Netflix’s Seriously Single is a South African rom-com that, if it wasn’t for its colloquial accents and variety of languages, could easily be mistaken for a Hollywood product. That’s a double-bladed axe of a compliment, of course, because American comedies often look great but rarely leave the shallow end of the pool. But there’s always hope that genre formulas will be altered and plots will twist whimsically instead of predictably, right? Sure.

SERIOUSLY SINGLE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Subtitle: FEBRUARY. Specifically, it’s Valentine’s Day, and Dineo (Fulu Mugovhani) is getting dumped precisely how everyone gets dumped — the dumper ships all the dumpee’s belongings from his apartment to her workplace. Dineo is a social media expert because there are no other jobs for Millennials in slickly produced middle-tier comedies, so she livestreams what she thinks is a romantic gift but is actually a mortifying embarrassment. All together now, UGHH. Dineo, you see, just wants someone she can introduce to her mom. She’s a romantic that way. Sure, she tends to take photos of her beau while he sleeps so she can soak up all the likes from her INSTA FLIQ followers and prove that she has a hunky BF, but pobody’s nerfect, right?

Dineo’s roomie and BFF, Noni (Tumi Morake), is the type who mauls any willing man within arm’s length at the bar, and takes the most willing one home for a one-night foofaraw. Therefore, her advice for Dineo during her rebound is, of course, to be casual, fer chrissakes, especially since three weeks have gone by and Dineo is still stalking her ex online. Soon enough, Dineo meets her latest unwilling social media subject, Lunga (Bohang Moeko), who appears to be the type to kick the soccer ball into many different nets, if you know what I mean. But before he knows it, she’s barging into the bathroom and chattering away as she shaves her pits, and he clearly just wants to enjoy a little alone time on the toilet. For Dineo, “boundaries” is just another word in the dictionary, I guess.

And then Dineo stalks Longa just enough to learn that he’s getting married, so, of course, without fail, the delivery guy shows up at her office with her toothbrush and shit. She and Noni try to crash the wedding because comedy, and then Dineo gets smmmmmmasshhhhhedddd and posts a hot-mess video that gets her tagged #desperatebae. At this point in the plot, her dating fenderbenders share time with some quality girl bonding between Dineo and Noni, who dig in and just love the hell out of each other. Noni seems to know very much who she is and what she wants, except this superchill bartender named Max (Yonda Thomas) might be eroding her stubborn bachelorettehood. So have these two lovely single ladies swapped brains or something?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Be thankful this isn’t just another Desperados — although it probably won’t be as popular.

Performance Worth Watching:

Memorable Dialogue: After only one date and one night together, Dineo all but breaks into Lunga’s apartment and dons a French maid getup to surprise-seduce him after a business trip:

Lunga: “If you came home and found some guy in your flat, how would you feel?”

Dineo: Lucky (pause for comic effect) that I have pepper spray in my bag.”

Sex and Skin: Just some morning-after snuggles.

Our Take: Seriously Single is the type of movie where unfriending an ex on the Bookface or whatever is a significant turning point. It’s the type of movie that mistakes desperate wackiness for comedy. It’s also the type of movie that believes karaoke scenes are so rich, there needs to be three of them, with the last one being the one that shows a character’s significant change of tune. And now, some hard truth: Ever since Bill Murray sang (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding in Lost in Translation, karaoke scenes in movie scripts need to be set adrift in asteroid fields to be pulverized before they’re filmed.

So yes, this is your garden-variety life-in-the-social-media-age (sigh) rom-com in many ways — but not every way, thankfully. After an hour or so of trope-ing around, the movie finally settles into a genial gal-pal groove, which is the closest it comes to scraping a little bit of earnest truth from the genre bucket. This is when Dineo and Noni come perilously close to becoming real people seeking a stronger sense of themselves. But only close — more often, Dineo is a keyboard character shifting from sad emoji to happy emoji to lovey emoji to crying emoji to drunk emoji, with little room for the ever-ambiguous no-mouth emoji. These characters feel like they’re constantly projecting for social media, without having much in the way of inner lives.

Sibling directors Katleho and Rethabile Ramaphakela pile on the visual gloss, rendering the Johannesburg setting flat and colorful and the characters all impeccable fashion and buffed teeth, every toe hair meticulously plucked, their flats decorated with the eye of an interior decorator that none of these people would ever be able to afford. It’s a world where no human is visually creased unless you’re drunkstreaming and peppered with Cheeto crumbs. It’s so hard to bust through the narrative shellac and find some humanity. There’s a little bit of it here, which is better than none, although it’s not quite enough.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Seriously Single takes too long to take singlehood seriously — and never quite clicks as a comedy either.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Seriously Single on Netflix