Usually, I avoid modern comedies.  They are predictable, and this results in them being largely not funny.  One can point to a variety of reasons for why this genre has lost its luster.  I am not going to get into any of them.  You can form your own opinions on the matter.  Yet, scrolling through offerings on streaming services, I noticed The Lovebirds (2020).  You will note the year.  Something about it rang a faint bell, like I would have seen it in the theaters.  Yet, we can all recount events from that time and why that was ultimately not possible.  At any rate, I reasoned that if there was a moment at which I wanted to see this film, then why not now?  In spite of any potential misgivings, I was largely okay with the experience.

The Lovebirds are Jibran (Kumail Nanjiani) and Leilani (Issa Rae).  We meet them on the morning after their first date, and it seems to be one that ended back at her place, if you get that to which I am alluding.  They are complimentary of one another, and it is evident that they do not want their time together to end.  Thus, it gets stretched out into the late morning and early afternoon, with Leilani ignoring plans she had made with her friends.  This becomes four years, yet they have grown less lovey-dovey in the intervening time.  As they get ready to head to a gathering of friends, a number of ongoing arguments come to the fore.  The tension is carried over as they drive to the party, and soon they are breaking up.  Their bickering distracts Jibran long enough to where he ends up hitting a man on a bicycle (Nicholas X. Parsons).  Jibran and Leilani get out to help, but they find Bicycle (this is what they call this person since they do not get his name) unwilling to call the cops or go to the hospital.  Instead, he gives them his cell phone and flees.  Emerging from one of the buildings is Mustache (Paul Sparks).  Again, Jibran and Leilani’s designation, not mine.  Mustache tells them he is a cop, which they accept as he commandeers their vehicle.  It becomes less apparent that he is a member of law enforcement when Mustache runs over Bicycle several times.  He is about to shoot them when he hears police sirens.  Instead, Bicycle’s body is found by a couple bystanders who assume it was Jibran and Leilani who committed this crime.  Rather than waiting to explain themselves to the authorities, Jibran and Leilani run.  They stop at an International House of Pancakes (IHOP) to figure out what to do next, and it is then that the police start calling.  They assume because he is of Asian descent, and she is African American, that they are suspects.  Their idea, then, is to try and uncover what is going on themselves.  It is also while sitting in the breakfast place that Bicycle’s phone gets a request from a mysterious source to meet a person named Edie (Anna Camp) at a certain address.  Thinking this might be the beginning of the process of clearing their names, they go there and find Edie.  Shortly upon meeting her, they are knocked out and taken to a different location.  Here Jibran and Leilani are threatened with torture if they do not reveal the identity of the person for which they are working.  They know nothing, so they cannot answer, and Jibran is kicked in the chest by a horse for his troubles.  Yet, in the ensuing chaos he is able to snag a piece of paper dropped by Edie with an address written on it.  Jibran and Leilani manage to escape and go to the location.  There they find a number of frat boys stuffing envelopes with pictures, which jives with the blackmail to which Edie had alluded.  Because they snuck in, one of the dudes, Steve (Moses Storm), arranging the pictures is surprised to find Jibran and Leilani in his bedroom.  They are able to subdue Steve, who tells them that they are part of this blackmail sting, and that Bicycle’s phone would be able to give them a list of their targets. The problem is that they cannot access the cell without its passcode.  To get this, they finally go to the party that had been their original intention of the evening.  At the soiree is Keith (Modhi Cocci), the information technologies (IT) guy that works with Leilani, and of who Jibran is jealous.  All the same, Jibran and Leilani are able to trick Keith into getting into the phone for them.  This gives them their next goal: an elegant party about to take place in town.  Borrowing some clothes from their friends, they bluff their way inside what turns out to be a meeting of a secret society.  Basically, and unfortunately, think Eyes Wide Shut (1999) and you have an idea, almost quite literally.  The orgy is thankfully interrupted before it gets going in earnest by a tipoff that they have an impostor among them.  Jibran and Leilani are fooled into taking off their masks, showing them to be the ones who do not belong.  Before any harm can come to them, they are warned that the police are on their way, and everyone flees.  Everyone, that is, except for Jibran and Leilani.  They are taken into custody and believe they are about to go to jail.  This is when Detective Martin (Andrene Ward-Hammond) informs them that surveillance footage shows their innocence, and that they are not suspects.  They are offered a ride home, and a guard overnight.  Unfortunately, the person behind the wheels turns out to be Mustache.  It takes them finally getting in sync for them to overpower Mustache.  As they get medical treatment following their ordeal, they finally do that which every little moment between the beginning and this moment has led to: kissing and making up.  We close with them on the show The Amazing Race (2001-present), stopped in their quest to win $1 million by a horse.

Not to beat a dead horse (sorry, I could resist) but my Catholic commentary on The Lovebirds is going to touch on some familiar themes.  Once again, too, I have described a comedy in such a way that it probably sounds more like an action flick.  This is a shame because, despite the scene in the weird secret society, there were some moments in which I actually laughed.  What I did not chuckle at was the way in which sex is treated.  To repeat an oft used tenet of the Catholic Church in these reviews, sex is something best left for marriage.  I try not to cover the same belief all the time, but so often films give reasons for why this is the case.  Then again, if you had people behaving as they should, you probably would not have a movie.  The problem is that society far too often mimics what culture is portraying.  This is not meant to be a discussion of life imitating art, or vice versa.  An argument can be made for both sides of this debate depending on circumstance.  In this case, it is more like art imitating life, and look what happens to this couple because of their not keeping their pants on until after nuptials.  Granted, it is an unrealistic comedy, but the argument stands.  What is even more interesting is part of the fight that Jibran and Leilani have early on in the film.  Leilani likes a status update for a friend of hers that gets engaged.  Jibran questions this, alluding to her aversion to marriage.  He later mocks her for not believing in professing their undying love for one another, i.e., marriage.  What it speaks to is that which God designs us for, and that is to be procreative.  That does not automatically mean making babies.  Priests and female religious take part in this, but, obviously, in a different way.  Perhaps Jibran and Leilani would be less selfish if they made their vows.  Then, parts of what they do would be less stressful.

Then again, there is no getting around Leilani’s fixation with orgies in The Lovebirds.  This is problematic with or without a wedding.  It is also really the only objectionable part of the film.  Yes, it is predictable that they will get back together in the end.  I am glad that happens, too.  Regardless, you could pick a worse movie.