Producers: Jason Bateman, Michael Costigan, Reese Witherspoon, Lauren Neustadter and Aline Brosh McKenna   Director: Aline Brosh McKenna   Screenplay: Aline Brosh McKenna   Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Ashton Kutcher, Jesse Williams, Zoë Chao, Wesley Kimmel, Griffin Matthews, Rachel Bloom, Shiri Appleby, Vella Lovell, Tanner Swagger, Mystic Inscho, Tig Notaro and Steve Zahn   Distributor: Netflix

Grade: C-

Romantic comedies are hard to pull off; the ones that last are few and far between.  This Netflix offering is blessed with likable stars in Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher, and a strong supporting cast; it looks good, with a spiffy production design by William Arnold and glitzy cinematography by Florian Ballhaus; it’s got a bouncy score from Siddhartha Khosla; and it’s written by Aline Brosh McKenna, who’s had a long, if not particularly distinguished, career in the genre, and is here making her feature directorial debut as well.  But “Your Place or Mine” is a flat, predictable piece of work, coming off like a mediocre two-hour sitcom that doesn’t even have a laugh track to remind you that it’s meant to be funny.     

Witherspoon and Kutcher play Debbie Dunn and Peter Coleman, who had a one-night stand in California in 2003 but then became just very good friends.  She married a handsome mountain-climbing adventurer with whom she had a son, Jack; but they split up, leaving her a single mom working in public school administration.  Peter moved to New York City, becoming a successful brand management consultant.  They talk by phone all the time, supposedly telling one another everything about their lives—hers practical and completely devoted to her now thirteen-year old son (Wesley Kimmel), and his freewheeling, the writing hopes he once harbored abandoned in favor of high living and constant womanizing.  Though they’re very different, their jocular bickering shows they’re clearly BFFs (and clearly meant for each other).

These two obviously can’t stay apart for another twenty years if the picture’s preordained destination is to be reached, so McKenna resorts to the old trading-places scenario.  When Debbie’s plans to come to New York to complete a degree in accounting fall through because the ditzy friend who’s supposed to mind Jack bails, Peter decides to fly to L.A. and mind the kid while Debbie takes over his place.

With the coasts exchanged, each buddy changes the other’s life.  Debbie is shown the typescript of Peter’s long-unpublished novel by his wackily helpful ex-girlfriend Minka (Zoë Chao); happily she’s just met her favorite boutique publisher Theo Martin (Jesse Williams), and gets him to read the manuscript, which they both adore.  (Theo also serves as a possible romantic pairing for her, but that’s obviously a doomed plot thread.)

Meanwhile Peter bonds with Jack by allowing the kid to do stuff his over-protective mother won’t.  He lets the boy watch scary movies and eat forbidden food (though, happily, not the nuts to which Jack is allergic).  Most importantly, he encourages Jack to try out for the school hockey team, at which the kid proves amazing, earning the admiration of the arrogant classmates (Tanner Swagger and Mystic Inscho) he’s dreamed of having as friends.  Of course, that will prove a cause of friction between Debbie and Peter.  Will they be able to overcome it?  And will they reconcile in a meeting at LAX?  Have you ever seen a romcom before?

It should be mentioned that Peter will have other folks besides Kimmel (who looks a lot like the young Corey Feldman) to share unfunny banter with in California.  One is Tig Notaro, who plays Alicia, Debbie’s sharp-tongued, and of course queer, campus colleague.  Another is Steve Zahn as Zen, Debbie’s zonked-out neighbor, who also insists on being her gardener.  Notaro is winning with her deadpan, cynical delivery.  On te other hand Zahn, usually a reliable farceur, is excruciating in a poorly-written role he tries desperately to bring to life with bits of exaggerated comic business.

As for Witherspoon and Kutcher, they’re agreeable enough, but the script gives them characters that are little more than sketches, and third-rate banter that affords few laughs.  They’re hardly helped by McKenna’s lackadaisical direction or Chris A. Peterson’s editing, which drags the slight piece out to nearly two hours.          

Your place should probably host “Your Place or Mine” only if your appetite for romantic comedies is insatiable.

Producers: Michael Jacobs   Director: Michael Jacobs, Scott Mednick and Vincent Newman   Screenplay: Michael Jacobs   Cast: Diane Keaton, Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, William H. Macy, Emma Roberts, Luke Bracey, DazMann Still, Michael Kostroff and Adrienne Lovette   Distributor: Vertical Entertainment

Grade: C-

Established writers must often look back wistfully on their early indiscretions, believing that a do-over could turn a disappointment into a hit.  Most resist the temptation to try surgery, but Michael Jacobs, an occasional playwright who found his greatest fame in television sitcoms (he created “Boy Meets World,” which ran for seven seasons, among others) has succumbed.  His first film as a writer-director is identified as based on one of his plays, but coyly omits to say which.  A little research reveals that it’s “Cheaters,” which was produced in New York in 1978, when Jacobs was only twenty-two—one of the youngest playwrights ever to have had a play on Broadway.  Despite featuring a well-known quartet of performers—Jack Weston, Lou Jacobi, Doris Roberts and Rosemary Murphy—it was a quick flop, running for little more than a month.  Now revised as “Maybe I Do,” it’s unlikely to have much more luck on screen, even with a cast that’s even starrier.

When “Cheaters” was written, the king of comedy on Broadway was Neil Simon, and Jacobs was obviously trying to mimic his style.  But his play, at least insofar as one can tell from the present offering, resembled Simon at his clumsiest.  The first part of the picture is some fifty minutes of set-up involving the six major characters.  First Howard (Richard Gere) and Monica (Susan Sarandon) are introduced sharing a bed in a ritzy hotel.  It’s revealed that both are married to others, and have been having an affair for four months.  Richard wants to break it off, which angers Monica, and when he walks out, she vows vengeance.

Elsewhere Sam (William H. Macy) is sobbing helplessly into a tub of popcorn while watching a pretentious foreign movie in a nearly empty arthouse theatre. Another patron, Grace (Diane Keaton), goes over to console him.  They go off to a crummy motel nearby and get a room, but merely talk, following that up with a walk around the city.  Then they go home to their spouses.  Unsurprisingly, sad-sack Sam’s wife is the waspish Monica, and kindly Grace’s husband is Richard. 

At a wedding reception, meanwhile, bridesmaid Michelle (Emma Roberts) is waiting to catch the bouquet.  Her live-in boyfriend Allen (Luke Bracey) jumps in to grab it instead.  When they get back to their apartment, they have a fight.  Michelle wants to get married, but commitment-phobic Allen wants to keep things as they are.  Michelle packs up and goes home to mother; Allen decides to visit his parents for advice.  It turns out that Michelle’s mom and dad are Grace and Howard, while Allen’s are Monica and Sam.  Holy coincidence, Batman!

Much advice ensues.  Monica is all for Allen moving on, Sam for him making up with Michelle; Grace tells her daughter to repair the relationship, while Richard urges caution.  Finally Diane suggests that they all get together for dinner—the youngsters and the parents who’ve never met, they all think. 

The dinner constitutes what was obviously the play’s second act.  While Michelle and Allen go upstairs to reach some big decisions, the four parents are left to sort matters out.  There is discussion of love, infidelity, forgiveness; there are recriminations and sappy explanations.  Monica is spiteful, Sam resigned, Grace hurt, Richard apologetic.  They talk about the pains of growing old and wondering about what might have been.  Will they break up?  Will the young couple make up?  The answers are all too obvious, and Jacobs does not disappoint by introducing any surprises; he has the formula down pat.

“Maybe I Do” offers an occasional decent quip, but is constructed like a six-part puzzle in which the pieces fit together way too easily, and even actors as skilled as these can’t milk many laughs from the tired jokes or much emotion from the serious speechifying.  Jacobs secures professional work not only from them but a few supporting players (DazMann Still as Luke’s friend, Michael Kostroff as the motel clerk, Adrienne Lovette as a waitress who commiserates with Howard—and the crew (production designer Rick Butler, cinematographer Tim Suhrstedt and editor Erica Freed Marker) as well.  It’s abundantly clear, however, that the short shelf life this material had on the New York stage was well deserved, though it might have played better in dinner theatres, where the standards were less demanding than on Broadway.               

So if the cast entices you into thinking about maybe watching “Maybe I Do,” don’t.