Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Perfect Find’ on Netflix, an Older Woman/Younger Man Rom-Com Led by Gabrielle Union

Gabrielle Union produces and stars in The Perfect Find (now on Netflix), a romantic comedy about a woman trying to rebuild her career and self after a life meltdown, but she didn’t realize the first brick would be falling for a dude who’s half her age. Directed by Numa Perrier (2019’s Jezebel), the film adapts a novel by Tia Williams, whose follow-up book, Seven Days in June, spearheaded her fame after it landed on Reese Witherspoon’s book list, and the New York Times bestseller list, and was recently optioned to become a TV series. But the question here today is, can Union spritz up the rom-com formula with another foray into the genre? Let’s find out.

THE PERFECT FIND: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Things were up, up, up for Jenna (Union), but they came down, down, down. Her career in the fashion industry had her and her longtime S.O. on the cover of magazines, labeled “the most stylish couple in New York.” But then they broke up and she got fired from her job and now she’s flumped in bed for days at a time at her parents’ house – a bad place to be when you’re in your 40s, no matter your level of former fame. Jenna’s mother (Janet Hubert) knows when enough’s enough, and boots her daughter, who lands in a Brooklyn apartment and finds herself in the office of the current borderline-fascist fashion queen of New York, Darcy (Gina Torres), angling for a job. Somehow, Darcy doesn’t make Jenna eat a dozen tons of crow, despite their years-long rivalry, when jobs were stolen and boyfriends were slept with. Darcy’s fashion mag, Darzine, has a need and Jenna’s got the stuff, and now she has 90 days to get people paying for content, or… well, one imagines Jenna being kicked in the heinie with the most brutally expensive shoes this side of Milan.

But that’s not the plot, not really, anyway. Jenna’s friends are happy she’s back on her feet, and their job now is to get this girl llllllllaaaaaaaiiiddddddd. They’re at a party one night when Jenna ends up mashing face with Eric (Keith Powers), which might be no big whoop if he wasn’t such a recent film-school grad, and we ain’t talking about a continuing-ed degree. No, he’s about 20-mmph years old and even though it’s electric like a thousand eels she stops herself and vamooses home and goes to work the next morning and meets her new co-worker, Eric (still Keith Powers), who inspires everybody watching to go OHHHH SHIT. It gets worse, because she’ll be working side-by-side with him, creating video content for Darzine and hopefully working front-to-back and night-and-day and up-and-down and backwards-and-forwards with him, for the sake of their swollen regions. It gets even worser than worse though, because he’s Darcy’s son, and your OHHHH SHIT is now considerably more profane.

Jenna’s career is very much on the line of course, so she and Eric get to it, and by “it,” I mean working through a wacky false-start of an interview with a fashion mogul mourning her dead pet peacock, then bickering and bantering like two movie characters, and you know the type, because they’re the type that bicker and banter and trade insults, all while the subtext is screaming THEY CAN’T WAIT TO PLUMB EACH OTHER’S NETHERS. Knowing that work must come first, they call a truce and bond over their love of old movies, especially those starring Hollywood’s first Black leading woman, Nina Mae McKinney. Jenna invites Eric to her place for a dinner party where she’s being set up with a man her age who ends up being a dorkus malorkus and everyone dips into the edibles and dances to Jenna’s compact discs (compact discs!) and by the time the place clears out Eric is making his face go mmmph in exactly the place where Jenna enjoys having his face go mmmph, and I don’t think there’s going to be any turning back from that.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The Perfect Find exists somewhere among The Devil Wears Prada’s fashion-biz fodder and rom-coms a la The Best Man, Two Can Play That Game and the Union-starring titles Deliver Us from Eva and Think Like a Man. 

Performance Worth Watching: Although Torres tears it up as a diva who’s like Diana Ross crossed with Cruella de Vil, her vamping doesn’t steal the movie from Union, who continues her career as an amiable, mediumweight leading woman whose performances tend to be a hair smarter than the films in which she stars.

Memorable Dialogue: Jenna’s sorry attempt to keep her and Eric’s priorities straight (even though true, honest love might be a bigger priority than some dumb ol’ job): “We do our jobs, not each other.”

Sex and Skin: Our protagonists in their skivvies; that moderately warm face-goes-mmmph scene.

Our Take: The Perfect Find gives us a pair of attractive leads in Union and Powers, who kindle some tender chemistry and make it look easy, because it’s all the easier to do when standing in front of gorgeously filmed romantic New York City backdrops. Of course, dozens of rom-coms have all that pleasant stuff, and slightly unfortunately, this film also has the plot of dozens of other rom-coms. You know the drill: Forbidden romance, jobs on the line, wacky-friend supporting characters, demon-villain antagonist and all the outside forces working very hard to force our protags into an all-too-familiar sneak-around/breakup-and-make-up plot (which starts to lose itself as the screenplay gets simple-syrup sappy deep into the third act). 

But. But! Union assures that the film isn’t another rancid cup of juice. It goes down easy, smooth and drinkable, because she manages to dig a little deeper into Jenna’s emotional roots than most actors front-and-center in routine rom-coms. She generates enough middle-age maturity in the character to render her empathetic instead of just plain pathetic; she’s never the butt of the usual easy jokes or mortifying cringe-comedy. No, the screenplay is respectful to its characters, who are colorful but rooted in reality (possibly with the exception of Torres’ outsized performance, although she also enjoys an earnest moment or two). And filling out the margins is a mindful, spirited soundtrack and a thin, yet still flavorful inspired-by-Black-Hollywood subplot. Union and Perrier find a spot between inspired and ordinary that’s not a terrible place to be.  

Our Call: The Perfect Find doesn’t come close to achieving that word in its title. But sometimes, good enough can still be satisfying. STREAM IT. 

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.