If you’re going to gather a bunch of horrible, selfish people at a resort and then sit back and watch them tear each other apart, at least make them wrong in a complex, compelling way, like ” Glass Onion” or “The White Lotus.” There isn’t much to the people who make up the wedding party in “The Drop” beyond a few annoying quirks, so if Smith is aiming for real emotional stakes by the end, it’s hard not to. -care because the foundation is not there.
All is happy and optimistic at first, however, as married Los Angeles bakers Lex (Anna Konkle of “PEN15”) and Mani (Jermaine Fowler in “Sorry To Bother You”) trying to make their own baby. They also make a cake for the destination wedding of their gay friends, Peggy and Mia (Jennifer Lafleur and Aparna Nancherla), who has an infant daughter. (The whole cake thing is very distracting, by the way – like, how do the layers withstand changes in cabin pressure during flight? The plane allows them to carry everything? Right? Peggy and Mia hire a local baker?)
But the real problems arise when they arrive in paradise and see all their old friends. Joining the festivities are the self-serious Shauna and Robbie (Robin Thede and Utkarsh Ambudkar), a narcissistic TV actress and her unnamed husband; and Josh and Lindsey (Joshua Leonardwho co-wrote the script, and Jillian Bell), the hippie couple who own the beachfront Mexican resort where the wedding takes place. As they all greeted each other at the airport curb, Lex briefly held the child, encouraging Mani to gaze at him lovingly. But when a bee stings his head, Lex freaks out and drops the boy on the sidewalk. (He’s fine.)
The moment is meant to be a melting pot of these characters and their relationships, a catalyst for confrontations as the weekend progresses. And it was primarily intended as an opportunity for Lex to assess whether he was ready to become a parent himself. Instead, we get a series of awkward conversations that don’t really feel like they’re going anywhere. College friends don’t have much in common anymore, but even that dynamic doesn’t result in any kind of prickly friction. And a line about Lex being romantically involved with various members of all the other couples — male and female — added nothing. Also along for the ride is Shauna and Robbie’s obnoxious teenage son, Levi (Eliseo Henig), who watches porn on his iPad on the plane and hosts a vlog about the importance of men spreading their seed. Maybe Smith is making a point about toxic masculinity, but it feels underdeveloped.
Konkle and Fowler have a fun, easy chemistry with each other, but it’s just them. So much of “The Drop” is shown in an endless scene on a boat where Smith cuts between various duos or groups chatting. It goes round and round, with discussions getting increasingly personal without being particularly interesting. You might be tempted to do what Mani did: jump into the water and swim to shore.