Ibiza is the Chick Flick I Didn’t Know I Needed
A couple of weeks ago, I attended a movie screening of the Netflix film Ibiza. Not gonna lie, I only signed up for the screening because I knew Richard Madden was in the film, and there was a cast/crew Q and A after the movie (of course, he wasn’t at the Q and A, off being all Scottish and worldly and living in another country…whatevs). I made Brianna go with me, and honestly, I had low expectations for the movie itself. Luckily, I was pleasantly surprised. I laughed. my. ass. off. And when I wasn’t laughing, I was dancing in my seat. Who knew I was into EDM? I loved the movie so much, that as soon as it was released at 12:01 am on May 25th, I logged onto Netflix and watched it again. And it was just as funny the second time. And I was sitting on my couch this time, so the dancing was full force.
I realized shortly after my second viewing that I didn’t just love this film because Richard Madden is hot AF (and he is adorable, bumbling, Scottish perfection, don’t get me wrong). I love this movie because it is a new kind of chick flick, and I honestly didn’t even know it was missing from my life until I saw it. At its heart, Ibiza (written by Lauryn Kahn, who I need to be friends with) is about three friends who take a trip. There are men involved. But the real crux of the movie is the friendship between the three girls. And they don’t fight, they don’t yell at each other, they don’t steal each other’s men. They’re just real friends. And the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t believe how rare it is to see these kinds of female friendships on the screen. To be fair, I don’t watch a ton of comedies, so there may be some that have come out in recent years that show these kinds of relationships, but I couldn’t think of one. In the most popular chick flick in recent years, Bridesmaids, the whole premise is a fight between best friends-a fight about jealousy over another friend. And that shizz is lame (though I loved that movie at the time and laughed my ass of in that one too). One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Leah (Phoebe Robinson) has to wrangle a drunk/high Harper (Gillian Jacobs) and Nikki (Vanessa Bayer) home from a party. Who hasn’t been the drunk girl getting dragged out of a cab by the one sober friend? And who hasn’t been the sober friend?
The comedy in this movie is real and witty and slapstick and crude. The girls cuss a lot (#samesies) and they get drunk and high and blow off work, but still get shit done. They hook up with dudes and go to parties and make terrible decisions. And at the end of it all, they have each other’s backs. And at the end of it all, (spoiler alert) there is no perfect happy ending. There is no riding off into the sunset, metaphorical or otherwise. There’s just real. And if I weren’t a happily married mother of a young kiddo, I would be planning my next girls trip and it would include dancing my ass of in Ibiza (like I really, really just want to get wasted and go out dancing, but like I’m a good ten years older than most kids at da club, and like, can I still do that? If I say like enough?).
Hot damn, this guy is pretty.
We need more movies like this on our screens. I NEED more movies like this in my life, and I’m a good chunk of years older than these characters. I need to see friendships between women that don’t dissolve into catty backstabbing. I need to see career women who get drunk and swear like sailors. I need them to be the heroes of their stories, and not the villains. Because I am one of those women, and it feels REALLY FUCKING GOOD to see unapologetic females kicking names and taking ass. So please, go watch Ibiza immediately. It’s on Netflix right now. You don’t even have to change out of your pajamas. You can drink as much as you want while you watch. And when you feel the need to dance on your couch, no one has to know.
