To Each Her Own (2018)

There are actually two WLW films titled To Each Her Own. The other is a drama made in 2008. Made 10 years later, this movie is allegedly a comedy. However, in order to truly live up to its comedy potential, To Each Her Own needed to be 20% wackier or have 15% less depictions of serious intolerance. Or both. Both probably would have been good.

To Each Her Own follows Simone, a french Jewish lesbian who is not out to her parents. Simone has a stable, long term partner named Claire. However, just as she gets engaged to Claire and feels ready to come out to her parents, Simone finds herself tempted by hitherto unfelt heterosexual urges. The subject of her interest is Wali, a charming, male, Senegalese chef. Simone spends most of the movie working through her romantic feelings towards both Wali and Claire. Her presence in circles of Jewish people, queer people and now Senegalese people leads to misunderstandings and discussions about culture and prejudice.

To Each Her Own has good energy as a movie. What it doesn’t have is a lot of actual jokes that land. As rapid-fire and quirky as the dialogue is, the main story concept and lack of any actual punchlines ensured that at no point did I actually laugh. This movie needed needed more hijinks. It isn’t wacky enough. For a romantic comedy with cases of mistaken identity and surprising love triangles, it needs to be far more over the top. As it currently is, To Each Her Own exists in this awkward middle ground where its characters are too quirky for them to feel realistic or relatable but not ridiculous enough to make for good comedy.

It is a minor miracle that the lead characters aren’t wholly unlikable. Simone is indecisive and plays with the hearts of both her love interests. Wali’s pursuit of her is also something that could very easily delve into creepy territory. That he doesn’t is a testament to how charming and likable actor Jean-Christophe Folly is and how solid the chemistry is between he and Simone. But while these characters aren’t hateful, it’s still an uphill battle to really root for them and I never quite get there. It’s pretty faint praise to say that I didn’t wholly hate these characters.

The depiction of French culture in To Each Her Own was something I found rather depressing. The levels of casual intolerance in this film are higher than I expected. True to life or not, it’s not very funny and is a main reason I struggled with this film as a comedy. Simone’s father fainting and being hospitalized after Simone comes out isn’t funny to me, it’s upsetting. And that’s not a one-off event. To Each Her Own focuses on intolerance and while the movie makes the point that intolerance is bad, it’s still not a funny thing to see.

To Each Her Own tries to delve into cultural insights and discussions. Queer, Senegalese and Jewish identities are all touched on in the film. However, these explorations remain shallow. I don’t feel more enlightened on the identities I don’t belong to- Jewish or Senegalese and there was no discussion of the queer identity that I found to be insightful or interesting. Perhaps it’s because the movie is trying to remain lighthearted, but these efforts come off as shallow and are the least interesting part of the movie. There’s lots of WLW films that give an insightful look at a culture and the intersectionality of identities. To Each Her Own is not one of them.

To Each Her Own ends with Simone, Wali and Claire all riding off together into the sunset on a scooter, presumably to explore a polyamorous relationship. I have problems with this. My first problem is that there’s three of them on a scooter and none of them are wearing helmets. That’s very unsafe! My second problem is that while I champion poly narratives, this happy, poly ending wasn’t earned nor built up. For the entirety of the movie, Wali and Claire have been romantic rivals. Both have expressed jealousy and dislike over the other person. For the film to suddenly end with Simone picking both of them and both of them being fine with this comes out of nowhere and feels random. It feels like a cop out more than anything.

This polyamorous endgame relationship does make me want a sequel though. There is definitely a feature film’s worth of material of these already individually marginalized people now in an underrepresented relationship and having to navigate having an actually committed poly relationship after the seemingly snap judgment on their part to engage in such. Plus, that’s an even wackier premise so maybe that would be a movie that actually in being funny.

Like lots of Netflix films, To Each Her Own doesn’t seem to have grander ambitions than to waste 90 minutes of your time and have you not feel pissed off at the end of it. It’s a fairly average film. The pacing is good and it kept my interest but there’s nothing remarkable here. It should be funnier than it is. It should be more insightful than it is. As it stands, it’s just something to watch on a Sunday afternoon and forget about a few days later. It’s not incompetent by any means but there’s little good in To Each Her Own that warrants it a recommendation from me.

Overall rating: 5.5/10

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