Picture This: Simone Ashley Is The Saving Grace Of This Tired, Confusing Plot

Picture this: some highlight that this new Amazon Prime Video romantic comedy might be one of the good ones. Specifically due to its stellar star cast starring Hero Fiennes Tiffin, best known for his role in the steamy After trilogy on Tumblr, and Simone Ashley, the ever-positive breakout star of the Netflix treat Bridgerton. They are the main leads of an omnipresent story forging in an unwanted charity case at thirty as an unmarried woman.

However, despite both leads being very charming—or, in Tiffin's instance, simply plain good-looking as a nice neighbourhood guy with not much to do, Picture This still has the telltale signs of a digital firm's content assembly line: cheap production, overuse of lighting, staccato pacing, and ridiculously exaggerated characters with little comedic worth.

Disclaimer: This article may contain spoilers.

A flaky adaption of the Australian Movie, Unyielding screenplay and writing

Only last year, Amazon commissioned and released the Prarthana Mohan-directed film based on the Australian classic Five Blind Dates. The misadventures of a lucky/constricting palm reading are relocated to hackney by screenwriter Nikita Lalwani, who shoots it as if for an Instagram reel. Pia (Ashley) is a 29-year-old photographer who runs her portraiture studio business doubled as a roomy (to my Brooklyn-trained eyes) living apartment. 

This tastefully portrays city existence for this self-sustaining, focused young woman neither pathetic nor developed; she and Jay (Luke Fetherston, doing supporting actor duty through main drive) share a great bond. Her creative pursuits and a new business come before any romantic indiscretions.

The irony, however, is nuanced here: First, there are issues with her photography studio. Second, the jewellery her mother kept for her is so precious that she may sell it to settle the mounting debt of the company. Gigantic sigh! Since Jay (Luke Fetherston), Pia's gay best friend and co-worker, has no sense in life but to be the one-man support system for a struggling movie star, Pia comes back to the studio so that he can hear her whine and sulk. Does he even have a dating or sex life or other friends or family? Who knows! Not important!

He is there to help Pia through all of her existential and practical crises, joking about how he never gets paid, taking her pizza and champagne when she's down, running her business, and being there for her during Sonal's "wedding month." Month? Indeed, month. Pia tells the white Jay that Indian weddings are magnificent. She goes to the first of several wedding-related festivities as the maid of honour. 

A fortune teller reads the bride's palm, then he takes Pia's mitt and declares that she will find her spouse in the following five dates. What a waste of whatever plans Jay might have had. It's a good thing she's in a romantic comedy because, otherwise, her issues could be hard to handle rather than being solved by fanciful screenplay miracles.

Tiffin's lacklustre presence and lack of hormonal spark with Ashley weigh down Picture This, which delivers nothing new or intriguing for its genre. The screenplay is to blame for reducing Pia to a character who refuses to be conventional but ultimately reverts in flawless harmony with the film's sloppily irresponsible adherence to the timeless conventions of romantic comedies. The experience as viewers is a disappointment, though, but not a painful one at that. The rom-com recently escaped from being awful in this very terrible way. 

Confusing and Unconvincing Narrative- Simone Ashley tries her best to rise above the flounders

Most others would characterize Ashley in this movie as more bumbling, desperate, or strident, but Ashley, who could make sparks fly even out of Bridgerton's fluff, navigates a series of clumsy encounters and discovers some naturalism and biting stubbornness in a character. Nevertheless, even she cannot rise above material that vacillates between farce, romance, family drama, and critique of overbearing elders.

At one point, Pia shows a much-discussed past independence and rebellion by recalling an ad-lib exercise she employed in lighting up a joint with a battery in her university days, which put her hair on fire and resulted in her having it shaved. That is the hectic pace and dazed tone of this movie.

This concept extends to comedy as it's hard to make people laugh at silly and cringeworthy situations that are recycled time and time again. As much as it's admirable when a movie pushes new cultural representational ground, it's a letdown when it gives up specificity for the same tired, old, hackneyed, broad jokes and character development.

But for Ashley, who has a promising future in movies with better scriptwriting, it might be worth a try. Too bad much of this is filmed in the typical glare of the streaming economy, which is ironically about a talented photographer who is reputed to have a great eye for lighting. There is also too much use of unnecessary split screens that take away instead of adding.

This movie looks exactly as superficial as it is, but Ashley and Fetherston do their best to bring some depth and a lived-in look. That does not mean that it is not fun at times. While it's great when a movie breaks new representational ground culturally, it is disappointing when it does so by sacrificing specificity for the same tired jokes and character development. But for the sake of Ashley, who is seemingly heading in the right direction in the film with improved writing, it could be worth attempting to be seen once.