Harper gets sent to Barcelona on business, and I believe that her boss intended for her to do some actual work but instead her give-a-fuck meter is pointing to zero, which should have been evident the minute she invited her two best friends on her very important, very serious business trip.
Things that Harper (Gillian Jacobs) and besties Leah (Phoebe Robinson) and Nikki (Vanessa Bayer) do in Spain instead of work: sun tan, sun burn, rate nipples (Bilbo Baggins, Little Bo Peeps, Honeydews, Rhi-Rhis, and Daniel Craigs – which are you sporting?).
And that’s before they skip town entirely, chasing after a hunky DJ because Harper felt a “connection.” Hence, Ibiza.
This movie is almost entirely drugs, beats, black lights, confetti cannons, and naked sushi. Have you ever risked your career and future to get high and get dick, not necessarily in that order? Priorities, people! Now imagine, for a moment, being the HR lady back at Harper’s PR firm in New York. Imagine being Harper’s mother. Imagine being Harper’s urethra! Imagine being Harper: putting yourself in a series of really sketchy situations, and then having the privilege to call it “adventurous” and “risk-taking” because you had the good fortune not to get raped. Netflix wanted to dip its misshapen little toe into the raunchy comedy genre, and it did it EXACTLY as you’d expect it to.
To say this film is loosely structured is to loosely blaspheme structure. Twenty five minutes in, I still didn’t have the foggiest what this movie was going to be about. Ibiza puts a lot of faith in Gillian Jacobs’ ability to carry a film, to truly be its star, and as you can tell, I have absolutely no chill for this entitled character and her complete disregard for her colleagues, her clients, her dignity, her vaginal health, and worst of all, for me and my time and my vaginal health. Just kidding, about that last bit. My vagina is the only part about this with any genuine charisma or girl power, so go me, and also, don’t watch this movie.
Good stuff. We always enjoy your acerbic attacks on movie tat.
‘Little Bo Peeps’ btw, but it’s our secret, mmkay?
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Absolutely, just between me and you.
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Damn and here we thought we were the soul crushers of bad films……you go girl!!!
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I am a novelist/screenwriter. The first rule of screenwriting is by the 10th or 11th minute, the main character and his goal need to be well define by an inciting incident. I am amazed that so many movies today fail to define the protagonist’s need/goal.
Thanks for the review. I think this is one I prefer to avoid.
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Heh, heh, heh! 😀 … I think your vagina oughta take a bow! 😀
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Good grief. Saw the trailer for this and knew immediately this wasn’t for me. Or for anyone, really.
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Coincidentally, Netflix autoplayed the trailer for this at me this evening — I don’t know why, I’m clearly not the target market — and I thought it looked excruciatingly awful. Not least because Americans can’t pronounce “Ibiza” properly. But also, all the stuff you said.
On the bright side, I guess the trailer accurately represents the movie…
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Ha, you know, even when they meet some Europeans who are pronouncing it differently, they never waver!
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Bummer. Honestly I was just going to watch it and pretend I was in Ibiza but your review convinced me not to bother. Plenty of other movies for that!
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Yeah, it’s actually not great for that because most of the movie does not take in Ibiza, but even when they go there, it’s actually shot in Croatia.
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This is pretty much what I expected from this film. The word “Ibiza” may be associated for some with youth frivolousness, but I thought it still deserved something better or more coherent than this apparent mess.
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Yeah, and the actual Ibiza is mad at them because they’re trying to get away from that image!
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Oh wow, that doesn’t sound like fun. I wonder if she had a job to go back to. Likely not.
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Thanks, I’ll be skipping it.
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Good god I wish I would’ve read this last night. I wanted to watch something ‘mindless’ after a long weekend.. boy did I get my wish.
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I watched about 30 minutes of this movie before turning it off. What a waste!
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