Michael Showalter
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Connections, in both directions
The only other film this comedy seems more aware of jabbing is Eyes Wide Shut, which happens to be one of the film’s more satisfying riffs.
It’s got elements of Date Night , Game Night and Eyes Wide Shut ; it even borrows a bit from Nanjiani’s 2019 action comedy Stuber .
Factoring in some of that need, "The Lovebirds" felt good...it's a fairly shallow, straight-forward and predictable romantic-action-comedy that works mostly as a distraction...but who couldn't use a bit of a distraction right now? Nanjiani and Rae play an on-the-rocks couple who break up, literally, at the exact moment they are sucked into a murder plot involving a "bicycle," a "mustache," several frat-boys and an underground "Eyes Wide Shut" sex cult made up of local politicians and influential citizens.
For reasons that are unclear their efforts to clear their names drop Jibran and Leilani into an "Eyes Wide Shut" situation that exists purely for the sake of existing.
From an Eyes Wide Shut-style secret society gathering to a frat party soundtracked by "Semi-Charmed Life," there's a predictability to the plot that's familiar without being totally tired.
Showalter is also a member of influential alt-comedy troupe The State, and The Lovebirds takes a brief detour into the surreal when Jibran and Leilani end up at an Eyes Wide Shut-style sex party, but the movie quickly pulls back from the weirdness and returns to conventional storytelling.
Like an AI mystery generated from bits of Jane Eyre and The Housemaid…
It may not be a fair comparison because the two films have different objectives, but “The Housemaid” (2025) is way more fun than “Verity.”
At the end of 2025, BookTok diehards were gifted one deadly fun book-to-screen adaptation in the form of The Housemaid, a semi-erotic psychological thriller starring two of Hollywood's most famous blondes as two women who find themselves caught up in a love triangle, with some seriously disturbing secrets lying beneath the surface.
In many ways, Michael Showalter's take on Verity plays out like The Housemaid's darker sister…
The success of Paul Feig’s naughty-but-not-nice movie The Housemaid proves it.
Verity could be looked at as a lesser sibling to The Housemaid and A Simple Favor with its mix of hideous lifestyle porn, forbidden lust, and outlandish twists.
Comedy directors (see also Paul Feig of “The Housemaid”) tend to do well in this genre…
As a producer and writer he’s been involved in favorites such as “Freaks and Geeks,” “Anchorman,” “Superbad,” “Step Brothers,” “Girls,” and “The Big Sick.”
Over and over during the press tour for The Big Sick in 2017, I remember screenwriters Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon talking about how their producer Judd Apatow had kept hectoring them to make their script more real, more personal, to go with honesty over punchlines whenever in doubt.
Films like The 40-Year-Old Virgin or even recent comedies like The Big Sick tend to front load their first hours with their biggest laughs, so it’s initially a solid change of pace for the filmmakers to trust the audience’s patience and take a character-driven approach.
The concept may sound a little self-indulgent on its face, and those viewers who may question their overall interest in Davidson’s life story may scoff, but The King of Staten Island plays — if not quite as successfully — in the same confessional comedic territory as The Big Sick (another Apatow production!
I know this is supposed to be the Pete Davidson semi-autobiographical flick or whatever, in the same vein as Trainwreck or The Big Sick , but Trainwreck was Amy’s screenplay and The Big Sick was Kumail and Emily’s script.
It’s got elements of Date Night , Game Night and Eyes Wide Shut ; it even borrows a bit from Nanjiani’s 2019 action comedy Stuber .
But The Lovebirds reminded me pleasantly of 2018’s Game Night , in how it’s about ordinary people who get caught up in movie-movie mischief and violence, and how they play along with it even as they’re slightly horrified with themselves over it: Rae and Nanjiani work their everywoman and -man charm to the max.
The Lovebirds — initially slated to premiere at this spring's SXSW, then landing at Netflix after Paramount pulled it from theatrical release due to the novel coronavirus pandemic — is a high-concept absurdist comedy that sits comfortably alongside 2010's Date Night (starring Tina Fey and Steve Carell) or the more recent Game Night (starring Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams), another nocturnal whodunit.
The movie itself recalls 2018's Game Night in that it focuses on a couple who're having issues, only to find themselves swept up in a one-crazy-night adventure which forces them to be really honest with one another for the first time in a while.
Like 2018’s Game Night , we’re watching two very relatable people engage with one extremely unlikely situation.
“The Big Sick” plays like a feature-length prelude to what could have been “My Big Fat Pakistani Wedding,” but without the vital and vigorous vulgarity of Nia Vardalos’s “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” and with, instead, the sophistication and good taste apt for more educated viewers seeking indie-brand movies.
Nanjiani’s relationship with his fellow comedians (Aidy Bryant and Kurt Braunohler) brings to mind the group dynamics of Mike Birbiglia’s Don’t Think Twice, whereas his conflicts with his Pakistani family play like a less zany version of My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
Of course, they've been a part of movies almost forever, from "The Jazz Singer" to "My Big Fat Greek Wedding."
As for the mention of this London neighborhood, it brings up the automatic thought of 1999's Notting Hill, amongst the few other movies in the rom-com genre to explore a romance through a lens in which one of the people in the relationship is world-famous (unfortunately, Marry Me tried to rip off this concept with much less success).
And there's something reminiscent of Knocked Up, albeit with darker circumstances, in how its male lead finds himself skipping right into the deep end of a relationship courtesy of an unexpected event.
You would have to dig back to movies like “Knocked Up,” or prehistoric relics like “The Graduate” to find romcoms that sent audiences home thinking they had just seen a movie that was funny and tender and true.
Not since the one-two punch of Knocked Up and Superbad has the Apatow formula paid greater dividends.
This is a feature of Apatow’s films (Knocked Up, This is 40), which are unfailingly honest about the ups and downs of marriage.
Director Michael Showalter (“Hello, My Name is Doris”), with an assist from producer Judd Apatow (“Knocked Up”) doesn’t exploit this; instead he portrays the families with depth and dimension.
With a dash of “Gone Girl,” there may be another thing or two elements in this Colleen Hoover’s adopted novel that might bear similarity to the other films, but that’s about it.
With Dakota Johnson’s character of Lowen, director Showalter had a character as promising as Jeff from Rear Window or Amy from Gone Girl.
It’s the palest of Gone Girl imitations…
It’s a glossier, more Hollywood affair, but The Big Sick does also reference the rough-and-ready, equally lovable British comedy East Is East (1999).
There are cheeky hints of Daphne du Maurier and Brian De Palma that promise a good time.
Showalter’s anonymous visuals mostly ape the tone of kinky, disreputable thrillers like Body Double…
Parts of Verity will have you wondering whether its intention is to resurrect the '80s and '90s erotic thrillers – your Basic Instincts or your Fatal Attractions, for example.
Verity explicitly calls back to gems of that genre like What Lies Beneath (2000) and Fatal Attraction (1987).
Parts of Verity will have you wondering whether its intention is to resurrect the '80s and '90s erotic thrillers – your Basic Instincts or your Fatal Attractions, for example.
References to Dressed to Kill and Basic Instinct include borrowed wallpaper and an ice pick.
The subject matter mines the same territory as 2015’s home movie/documentary Meet The Patels, moving the immigrant family up from Gujarat to Muslim Pakistan.
The latter bit will come as no surprise to those who saw the crowd-pleasing documentary “Meet the Patels,” which similarly addressed the informal, family-driven dating services that often thrive in immigrant communities.
On the surface, there are a number of similarities to another film I loved, Meet the Patels .
The resulting movie, directed by Michael Showalter ("Hello My Name Is Doris"), hilariously explores the cultural obstacles presented not only by Nanjiani's family, who seem lifted from the "Meet the Patels" documentary, but Kumail's awkward bonding process with Emily's parents Beth and Terry Gardner (Holly Hunter and Ray Romano).
Nanjiani’s relationship with his fellow comedians (Aidy Bryant and Kurt Braunohler) brings to mind the group dynamics of Mike Birbiglia’s Don’t Think Twice, whereas his conflicts with his Pakistani family play like a less zany version of My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
Aziz Ansari milks perceptive humor out of a similar identity crisis in “Masters of None,” and Kumail’s story also mines warm communal vibes and caustic humor specific to the standup scene that Mike Birbiglia probed in “Don’t Think Twice.”
Meanwhile, his stand-up career takes off, and Apatow lovingly captures the behind-the-scenes world of stand-up life in a way that recalls Mike Birbiglia ’s “Don’t Think Twice.”
Verity could be looked at as a lesser sibling to The Housemaid and A Simple Favor with its mix of hideous lifestyle porn, forbidden lust, and outlandish twists.
…taking a similar path to Paul Feig, who made such mysterious thrillers as A Simple Favor and The Housemaid after years in pure comedy. In fact, the two aforementioned Feig titles share numerous similarities with Verity.
The girlfriend-in-a-coma theme is a familiar one, but unlike Pedro Almodóvar’s rhapsodic dramatic comedy Talk to Her , the medical crisis here is harrowing.
Much darker and more twisty than the weepy trauma dumps “It Ends With Us” or “Reminders of Him,”…
…you’d think after It Ends with Us, Regretting You, and Reminders of Him that I would have learned my lesson by now…
Only a few months ago, theatres got REMINDERS OF HIM (what’s with the double R’s).
(The others are “It Ends With Us,” “Regretting You” and “Reminders of HIm.”)
…only sparked titles like “Regretting You,” “It Ends With Us,” and “Reminders of Him.”
While film fans might know Colleen Hoover only as the author of novels adapted into romantic melodramas heavy on wish-fulfillment fantasies—It Ends with Us, Reminders of Him…
But first—in a vague echo of the quasi-classic comedy “While You Were Sleeping”—Emily will be put in a medically induced coma so her infection can be treated.
Like a weird, wonderful cross between “Amour” and “While You Were Sleeping,” this alternately hilarious and wrenching portrayal of commitment threads a whisper-thin needle between candor and cathartic laughs, gliding from grim hospital vigils one minute and into antic screwball family dynamics the next.
For Emily, it’s The Abominable Dr. Phibes.
Those who know the joys of Nanjiani and Gordon will be satisfied, as they’ve channeled their enviable and geeky romance into a quirky love story that folds in The X-Files, Night of the Living Dead and The Abominable Dr. Phibes.
Certainly, there is nothing here to match the crisp definition of Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson, who, in “Lost in Translation” (2003), stood out so clearly, and with such a funky need for one another, against the jet-lagged atmosphere.