Vats and Vats of Bloody Alfredo Sauce

Jeff Baena’s Spin Me Round (2022) is a work of décollage. But of what? Romantic comedies, since we follow Amber (Alison Brie) on work retreat to gorgeous Tuscany, where she hopes to meet Mr. Right (hot, rich, European). People, however, keep disappearing, even as Craig (Ben Sinclair), the group’s Italian-speaking minder assures them everything is bene. The movie’s ever-building tension, abetted by a developing mystery, starts to recall What Have You Done to Solange? (1972) or The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (1972). So, throw in a dash of giallo, though with a guy named Fran (Tim Heidecker) who happily shows off his chest tattoo of cuts of beef. Amber and her fellow managers work at franchises of ersatz Olive Garden where they reheat tubs of alfredo sauce. Our hero herself hails from Bakersfield, CA, home of KoRn and methamphetamine. Homeless, bereft, Baena’s flick codes creepily without sacrificing laughs; it dances on the thin edge separating gallows humor from, well, the gallows.

In this, it succeeds. Many an unnerving moment is merely a recasting of a rom-com trope. Take, for example, Amber’s yacht trip with the company’s owner, Nick (Alessandro Nivola). The water glistens as their gigantic boat sets out. Nick offers her fine oysters, a far cry from overdone noodles in a sterile California “kitchen.” All is going perfectly. And yet even as they bond, their conversation spins into nigh psychedelic camerawork with fades and distortions. Is she drugged? Are we experiencing the magic of romance? What did he just say about “open-minded sexual exploration”? Once back on land, why do all his rich friends keep saying how open to new things Amber must be?

The same works in reverse too. Nick’s advances find no resistance from our protagonist, but his assistant, Kat (Aubrey Plaza), warns Amber that he preys on women constantly. We see other female managers in situations with Nick that mirror those with Amber. Given our moment, Nick begins to code sinisterly, non-comedically. Even making a weirdo sculptor named Ricky, played by Fred Armisen, his friend and seeming co-conspirator does not relieve the tension (it probably deepens it). That is until a late scene in which we see an Eyes Wide Shut (1999) party in the pale light of reality—pink, soft, aged flesh, buzzing toys on gleaming metal sticks, modern art with all the erotic potential of “SB-129.” This realism, absurd as it is, tilts still further until wild boars are running around and Tim Heidecker is trying to land a date from the back of an ambulance.

Unfortunately, the surreality of that final scene misses the mark. The movie just unspools. Kat drops off, gone—her possible relationship with Amber tossed by the wayside. Her role as a kind of bitter, too-cool procurer (Mhislaine Gaxwell perhaps?) for Jeffrey, er, Nick, with all the salience and sense of elite exposure that brought, simply disappears. Indeed, the final 15 minutes revise the Nick character, presumably so that Amber can complete her ironic, anti-rom com character arc. But it all falls flat. This is a pity, but not a surprise. Balancing the bleak and the comedic (which the movie does well for the most part) is a difficult task, one even the Coen Brothers can’t always pull off.

I won’t give away the ending in full. But it’s deflating; it undoes much of what had made the prior 90 minutes or so funny and disturbing. Tying that off necessarily sacrifices one or the other. If things are actually wrong, the laughs are disturbed; if nothing is wrong, the fear was all for naught, the social critique provided by the Nick character and the broader corporate structure melts away. “Necessarily” might be too strong a word—Barton Fink (1991) exists. But Spin Me Round, for all its successes, can’t hack it. And that’s all right. It tried.