Netflix has been on top of its game and feeding audiences with top-class content these past few years. The latest rom-com on Netflix, Desperados, is an example of it. The movie carved every inch of the reel to convey that the characters were headed for a different kind of rom-com story. But the ending of the film was pulled right off the handbook of every rom-com handbook ever. The movie stars Nasim Pedrad portraying Wesley’s character, a 30-year-old who just cannot seem to catch a break.
Wesley meets Sean (played by Lamorne Morris), and he decides within a blink of an eye that they two are not a good match. Later, when Wesley meets Jared (played by Robbie Amell), she feels that if she conceals her real personality well enough, he could be her ‘happily ever after.’ The couple has a magical time together, but for some reason, Jared ghosts her. Wesley gets mad and drunk and sends a sternly worded letter to Jared about it. The next day he calls up, explains he was in a car accident, has not seen his phone in 5 days, and realizes what blunder she did. She decides she has to fly to Mexico to delete the mail from the man’s email before he reads it. The following events are hilarious, and it gets even crazier when she bumps into Sean at the same resort.
For any regular fan of rom-coms, the apparent outcome of the whole situation is that Sean and Wesley will end up together, and that is the correct answer. But the journey of this 96-minute long movie did not suggest the ending to be this predictable. Sean is a widower and spends most of the time talking about how he does not think he is ‘ready’ to move on or deal with all the feelings in him about his wife’s death. It is not very unreasonable of him to be fair, and grief is not something everybody can quickly deal with. Some people need more time to move on and get back without heavy baggage.
Wesley is a colossal mess and her friends Brooke (played by Anna Camp) and Kaylie (played by (Sarah Burns), sit her down to tell her that she is her roadblock to the life that she wants. The girls tell her that she needs to work on herself before she can walk ahead and achieve all she wants. Wesley bags an excellent job and makes up with her friends by the end of the movie. But the journey towards self-acceptance is not over for her even when the credits start to roll. The film pushes the entire character ensemble to take a more in-depth look into yourself and be honest. So despite that, when Sean says he has fallen head over heels for Wesley precisely 2 days after he said he was not ready, the audience surely had a face-palm moment.
A lot of people are crazy fans for a sappy generic ending; the conclusion felt very forced, especially when one of the two had clearly stated he was not ready to be involved with someone. The last minutes feel sloppy and rushed like the writers just wanted to grace it with a bow. The movie had quite a lot of potential since all the characters have their flaws, and the script openly admitted that. It would have been more fitting to end the movie with the couple forming friendships and hinting that they may fall in love soon. That would have been much more realistic and acceptable.
