Friendzone Film Review – Been There, Seen That

The 2021 French Netflix film ‘Friendzone’ is about a nice guy with three best-friends, all girls, who give him bad dating advice and turn him into an asshole. So in the end, he goes back to being himself, so he can get the girl he really likes.

Directed by Charles Van Tieghem, ‘Friendzone’ stars Mickael Lumiere in the lead role as Thibault, who is a nurse and shares an apartment with friend & fellow nurse Lulu (Fadily Camara). He instantly falls in love with Rose (Eva Danino), a girl he meets at a beach, but she is quick to push him the friend-zone. That’s when his gal-pals decide to give him a make-over and get him the love of his life. Sound familiar? Like hundreds of romantic comedies we’ve already seen? Except that they throw in a little diversity, shake-up the inner friend circle – one guy with three close friends who are all ladies, one of them is black and another is a lesbian.

The romantic-comedy does have some funny moments, but is largely very predictable and filled with stale tropes. You have the classic climax – where one of the protagonists is leaving town, so the hero/heroine has to run last minute and make a declaration of their love. Blah blah blah. The pace is slow, the plot is thin, the actors are okay-ish. Mickael Lumiere feels underwhelming and ironically, he looked cuter before the makeover. Before his friends decide to change his hair & clothes, he looked like an adorable version of pop-star Bruno Mars, after the transformation, he looks like a random generic French man.

There isn’t much to say about this movie really. It’s one of those flicks that you can play in the background when you have friends over, you have something to laugh at, but don’t have to invest your entire attention too, so that you can also eat/drink & make jokes.

It’s a 5/10 from me.