Midway through The Drop, the core friend group attend their pal's wedding dress rehearsal which features talent show acts from each guest. One guest's act goes on too long and the others are mumbling and shifting in boredom. Unfortunately, that is how it felt to screen this flick which (shockingly) has a short, 92-minute runtime.
Created by Sarah Adina Smith, who serves as the writer, director, producer, and editor, The Drop is a dark comedy that challenges conventional knowledge about motherhood and maternal instincts. PEN15's Anna Konkle heeds an impressive cast including Jermaine Fowler, Utkarsh Ambudkar (last seen in The Dropout), and Aparna Nancherla, but not even this all-star group could save this movie which is filled with boring clichés and a plot that fizzles out too quickly.
Married couple Lex and Mani (Konkle and Fowler) are trying to have a baby. They have settled in Los Angeles with Lex owning her own bakery ironically named Carbs. The young couple heads to Mexico to attend Lex's college friend's destination wedding, and they gather with the friend group while flying first class.
The ensemble consists of Hollywood couple Robbie (Ambudkar) and Shauna (Robin Thede), their hormone-raging teen son Levi (Elisha Henig), soon-to-be-newlyweds gynecologist Peggy (Jennifer Lafleur) and Mia (Nancherla), their nine-month-old baby Ani, and Mexico-based resort owners Josh and Lindsey who are unhappily married and crumbling under the weight of their business. Together, they create an insufferable bunch with no redeeming qualities.
Here's the downer: The movie had a strong start and the characters' schticks were laughable, until the big drop. Going into the screening, which had its world premiere at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival as an official selection in the Narrative Feature Competition, all that was revealed about the movie is that it follows a woman who drops a baby—and that does happen, however, that is all that happens, which says a lot given that the big drop occurs within the first chunk.
After the happy bunch (who already seems sick of each other) land in Mexico, they gather outside to load their luggage in the hosts' car. Mani requests to hold Ani, and carefully does so before handing her off to a willing Lex. Distracted by a loudly buzzing bee, the baker drops the baby on the cold, hard pavement. The jarring moment is contrasted with quick humor and a big "what happened?" and while the worried friends wait at the hospital for an update, Josh walks around offering everybody festive coconuts for hydration (which his wife deems as wildly inappropriate). The rest of the movie follows the ensemble in their own heads, Lex's new status as a social pariah, and Mani's struggles to accept that his wife may not suitable to be a mother.
From here on, the laughs are sparse, not just from this critic, but from the entire audience who got increasingly quiet as the movie played on. The jokes are cheap and outdated— they give the talented comedian Nancherla a backstory that solely consists of her transitioning from being a Democrat to a right-wing libertarian after the birth of her daughter because she's so worried about her baby that she must loudly announce that she's armed with a gun, which clearly makes everybody uncomfortable.
Robbie and Shauna are too occupied with their budding Hollywood careers that they let their perverted and too-online son spout nonsense to a group of abstinent meninists and perv on their adult friends, and Josh and Lindsey try to recruit their friends as investors in their business amid the destruction of their marriage detailed through their tendency to body-shame each other to their friends. The sanest of the group is Mani, who tries to support his wife, deal with her nasty friends, and go through the only thing that resembles a growth journey in the entire movie.
All of this being said, the movie does have jokes, just not strong ones; it boasts a great, engaging storyline, it just reaches its climax within the first 30 minutes; it has an all-star cast of comedy actors, they just aren't utilized in a way that amplifies their likeliness. The movie lacks the charm and laugh-out-loud qualities of similar destination group comedies like Forgetting Sarah Marshall, carried by the lovable Jason Segel, and The Hangover, but it does offer an original idea that is not as predictable as its characters and introduces a new conversation about what it takes to be a mother, and the frightening vulnerability that arises when people expect women to naturally fall into the role.
The Drop had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival June 11, and screens June 12 and June 17. Tickets can be purchased here.