Spin Me Round

It’s really well done and just kind of odd but in a fun way.

Everything is thrown into the grinder of a ridiculous final act that shreds any subtextual nuance about workplace power dynamics, sexual antics, and blind romance.

Watching Spin Me Round, I was reminded of the phrase “jack of all trades, master of none.” It applies here – the production does a lot of things (many of them unconventional) but never leaves one fully satisfied.

Baena and Brie keep the tone ambiguous, which is fine in theory and eventually unsatisfying in practice, as “Spin Me Round” keeps hinting at various moods (romance, comedy, suspense) without ever settling on one.

Billed as a comedy-thriller, Spin Me Round could fairly be described as not quite funny enough to land as a comedy nor thrilling enough to be a thriller.

Alison Brie and the cast are fantastic, but the story veers unsuccessfully from light to dark to silly.

Can’t really figure out what it knows, what it doesn’t know, or how to refine the journey necessary to feel like you’ve gone anywhere.

Familiarity and danger rest side-by-side. The resulting movie is something off-kilter and oddly entertaining as it toggles almost imperceptibly between the all too real and the unreal.

Not even Nivola’s unsettling charm can drum up intrigue into what’s underneath the surface of high society’s most hedonistic tendencies. It’s like a recipe that’s way more fun to make than it is to eat, in cooking terms.

As breezy as its dreamy Mediterranean scenery, this zany comedy works thanks its fantastic cast. [Full Review in Spanish]