Netflix romantic comedies are very hit and miss. For every winner like Always Be My Maybe and Holidate, there's several losers like Isn't It Romantic, Your Place or Mine and Love Guaranteed. New offering The Perfect Find falls in the pleasantly forgettable pile in the middle - the resting place of films like Someone Great, Look Both Ways and Love Hard. The film from first-time feature director Numa Perrier (who has worked on TV shows Reasonable Doubt, Young Rock and Unprisoned, among others) follows 40-year-old Jenna, who is returning to the competitive world of fashion journalism in New York after a well-publicised year away. Jenna is played by Gabrielle Union (still probably best known for her iconic roles in Bring It On and 10 Things I Hate About You), who is also a producer on the film, and does her best to inject some spark into the character. Jenna, we learn in the magazine montage opening titles, was in a high-profile relationship with another New York socialite for 10 years, a mainstay in the society pages. She was kicking goals career-wise and relationship-wise, until things went sour and the pair split. It's not exactly explained how (surely not just from breaking up with her boyfriend?) but Jenna loses her job in this period, and we pick up with her after a year living back with her mother (Janet Hubert, the original Aunt Viv on Fresh Prince of Bel Air), out of the hustle and bustle of the city scene. In order to make her way back into the fashion life, Jenna visits her "frenemy" Darcy (Gina Torres from Firefly and Suits) - who's now got her own fashion media empire called Darzine - and begrudgingly begs for a job. She's paired with Darcy's 20-something-year-old videographer son, Eric (Keith Powers), to work on a campaign to drive subscriptions to their site. Only trouble is, Eric is the young guy she ended up making out with at a party shortly before starting the job - and Darcy is one overprotective, meddling mother. Jenna and Eric have sizzling chemistry in their first meeting. While The Perfect Find has its flaws, a believable connection between the leads is not one of them. The tension only ramps up as they spend more time together - even though Jenna says there's no way she's letting a silly little romance get in the way of her career comeback. On the whole, The Perfect Find is like Sex and the City meets Living Single meets The Devil Wears Prada as styled by Project Runway. Some of the costuming is quite out there, and in one early scene Gina Torres looks like she's struggling to move in the flashy ensemble Darcy has chosen. The scenes between Jenna and Eric are easily the best part of the movie, with some pretty decent back-and-forth exchanges and success on the professional front as well. But for a film with fairly no-holds-barred dialogue between Jenna and her besties (played by Aisha Hinds and La La Anthony), the sex scenes are pretty tame. The dialogue and the sex scenes feel like they're from different movies entirely. When the film eventually gets around to its final act, the ending feels far too rushed, with not enough time to properly explore the characters' new developments. If you've read the book from Tia Williams you might know if this is unique to the movie or comes from the source material, but it feels like the most significant part of the story has been given the least amount of time for exploration. The Perfect Find also stars DB Woodside and features cameos from model Winnie Harlow and basketballer Dwyane Wade, who just so happens to be Union's husband.
