Someone Great (2019)

DeWanda Wise is the gay best friend in writer/director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s 2019 romantic comedy SOMEONE GREAT.

SOMEONE GREAT

2019. USA.

 Director: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson

Screenplay: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson

 Starring: Gina Rodriguez, Brittany Snow, DeWanda Wise, Lakeith Stanfield, Peter Vack, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Alex Moffat, RuPaul and Rosario Dawson

In SOMEONE GREAT Jenny (Gina Rodriguez) is dumped right before leaving New York to accept her dream job across the country. Her best friends, Erin (DeWanda Wise) and Blair (Brittany Snow), make up excuses to leave work and cheer her up.

Erin is the queer friend in the group; she’s a real estate agent and a commitment phobe who is struggling to accept that she is, in fact, in love with the woman she has been seeing. Her inability to say “I love you,” even to her friends, leads to an argument with Blair later in the film:

“What are you so afraid of!?” she challenges.

“Everything.” Erin answers, before the two hug it out.

In creating SOMEONE GREAT, Robinson brings a different spin on the rom-com genre; it’s about a relationship ending, and new beginnings for its three leads. The film is focused on the strength in female friendships, and purposely avoids the trope in which women are pitted against one another. So, even when Jenny, Erin, and Blair are arguing it always comes from a place of love and support.

In a 2019 interview with “Decider,” Robinson explained, “This film is really an amalgamation of not just the relationships I had in my twenties, but the women that have helped me up and supported me … It’s much more a love letter to those women than it is about any of the men that I’ve dated.”

SOMEONE GREAT is one of my favourite rom-coms in recent years - you can find it streaming on Netflix.