Ego Nwodim Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie,’ starring Laila Lockhat Kraner, Kristen Wiig, Gloria Estefan and the voices of Jason Mantzoukas, Fortune Feimster, Logan Bailey and Tara Strong

September 24, 2025

by Carla Hay

Laila Lockhart Kraner in “Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie” (Photo by Leah Gallo/DreamWorks Animation/Universal Pictures)

Directed by Ryan Crego

Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional U.S. city of Cat Francisco and briefly in Illinois, the live-action/animated film “Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie” (based on the “Gabby’s Dollhouse” TV series) features a cast of characters who are humans (Latin, Asian and white) and talking animals.

Culture Clash: A teenager, who’s a cat enthusiast and owns a magical dollhouse occupied by cat dolls, goes on a road trip from Illinois to Cat Francisco, where she encounters a greedy cat litter mogul, who has stolen the dollhouse.

Culture Audience: “Gabby’s Dollhouse” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the TV series of the same name, the movie’s headliners, and fluffy and silly live-action/animated adventures aimed at children under the age of 10.

Jonesy the Cat and Kristen Wiig in “Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie” (Photo by Leah Gallo/DreamWorks Animation/Universal Pictures)

“Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie” is like rotten and tangled cotton candy. This sloppy movie spinoff of the Netflix TV series tries to look vibrant and appealing, but it’s an incoherent mess with terrible acting and a cluttered plot about a lost dollhouse. Although “Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie” is obviously aimed at children under the age of 10, viewers of any age deserve better than what is essentially garbage “junk food” cinema that will leave a proverbial bad taste in a lot of viewers’ mouths.

Directed by Ryan Crego, “Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie” was written by Mike Lew, Rehana Lew Mirza, Adam Wilson and Melanie Wilson. The movie, just like the TV series, switches back and forth between live-action and animation. These transitions aren’t always done smoothly and might be a little disconcerting to people who aren’t familiar with the “Gabby’s Dollhouse” series, which began in 2021, and is from the production studio DreamWorks Animation. “Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie” is DreamWorks Animation’s first theatrically released live-action/animated hybrid movie.

In the “Gabby’s Dollhouse” TV series and in “Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie,” the stories are centered on an American teenager named Gabby (played by Laila Lockhart Kraner), who has a dollhouse filled with miniature cat toys called the Gabby Cats. Pandy Paws (voiced by Logan Bailey) is Gabby’s goofy “best friend” out of all the Gabby Cats. The movie does an inadequate job of introducing the Gabby Cat characters to viewers who are unfamiliar with the TV series.

The other Gabby Cats in the movie that are also in the TV series are CatRat (voiced by Donovan Patton), a flamboyant, sometimes troublemaking character who can move through portals; Kitty Fairy (voiced by Tara Strong), a cat with wings and a gentle personality; Cakey Cat (voiced by Juliet Donenfeld), a cupcake-shaped cat who is sweet-natured; Daniel James “DJ” Catnip (voiced by Eduardo Franco), who is musically talented; Pillow Cat (voiced by Sainty Nelsen), who likes bedtime stories; Carlita (voiced by Carla Tessar), a feisty combination of a car and a cat; and cat-shaped pencil toppers Hopper, Chopper, Bopper and Marley, who do not speak but make noises.

Gabby has a magical headband for cat ears that can shrink her to the size of the Gabby Cats when she chants “A pinch on my left. Pinch pinch on my right. Grab Pandy’s hand and hold on tight.” The cat ears headband also gives other magical abilities to Gabby. Whenever Gabby is shrunk to the size of the Gabby Cats, the movie switches from live-action to animated.

In “Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie” Gabby (who’s about 13 or 14 years old) goes on a road trip from Illinois with her beloved Grandma Gigi (played by Gloria Estefan), to visit Gigi for a week in Gigi’s home city of Cat Francisco. (It’s really San Francisco with another name.) Gigi (who’s in the movie for less than 15 minutes) also loves cats and has a 1970s-styled Volkswagen van (with an 8-track cassette player) that has cat decorations on the front, including cat ears on the roof. Gabby takes her dollhouse with her by hitching it to the back of the van.

As soon as Gabby arrives at Gigi’s house, the dollhouse accidentally gets loose from its hitch on the van. Gabby spends much of the movie looking for the dollhouse. The dollhouse rolls away and ends up in the possession of a retailer, who sells it to a conceited business mogul named Vera the Cat Lady (played by Kristen Wiig), who offers a bigger payment than the intended buyer.

The intended buyer is a woman who wanted to purchase the dollhouse for her daughter, whose name is listed in the movie’s end credits as Kitty Ranger #1 (played by Kate Whiddington), who gets very angry that this dollhouse was “stolen” from her. There’s a clumsy subplot about Kitty Ranger #1 enlisting her two friends Kitty Ranger #2 (played by Sophia Biling) and Kitty Ranger #3 (played by Lauren Chan) to track down Vera and get the dollhouse back.

Vera is written and portrayed as the most negative stereotype of an unmarried “cat lady” who lives alone: She’s depicted as mentally unwell and mean-spirited. Vera’s cat sidekick is Marlene Purrkins (played by Jonesy the Cat), who doesn’t speak in a human voice. But if this cat did, the cat would probably say, “Get me out of this horrible movie!”

It’s explained in the movie that Vera made a fortune for inventing Pretty Glitter Kitty Litter, which looks exactly like the name suggests. Bizarrely., Vera uses Pretty Glitter Kitty Litter on herself as if it’s perfume—and she thinks other people should too. Vera is an obsessive collector of cat-themed memorabilia. As far as Vera is concerned, the dollhouse that he bought is collectible art that she sees only for monetary value.

Someone who befriends the Gabby Cats is a cat toy named Chumsley (voiced by Jason Mantzoukas), whose sarcastic personality masks his emotional pain of being abandoned by Vera years ago when Vera became a teenager (played by Cassidy Nugent) and outgrew playing with toys. During the hunt and battle over possession of Gabby’s dollhouse, the movie constantly brings up the theme of people usually outgrowing their interest in playing with toys. (This theme of outgrowing childhood toys is very reminiscent of the Oscar-winning 2010 animated sequel “Toy Story 3.”)

The movie doesn’t condemn adulthood but repeatedly says when people mature out of childhood, they usually lose a sense of childlike wonder. A scene beginning of the movie shows Gabby being worried that she might lose interest in her dollhouse and Gabby Cats when she becomes an adult. A flashback scene shows a tween Gabby at about 6 or 7 years old (played by Tina Ukwu) getting the dollhouse as a gift from Gigi, who is a dollhouse designer. A teenage Gabby is now inspired to be dollhouse designer, just like Gigi.

“Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie” swirls with a lot of brightly hued action scenes and explosions of pink of almost every shade. These visuals cannot compensate for a flimsy story. Mildly amusing gags go on for a bit too long and become tiresome, such as a sequence where Vera tries to compete with her cat Marlene on who can do the most difficult yoga poses. Wiig’s performance is intentionally hammy, but it’s still hard to watch her waste her comedic talents in this dreck.

The movie goes off on a tangent with wooden Kitty Gnome statues in Vera’s backyard. The Kitty Gnomes (voiced Thomas Lennon, Ego Nwodim, Kyle Mooney and Melissa Villaseñor) believe that Kitty Fairy is their queen. And so, there’s a part of the movie where the Kitty Gnomes insist on giving an offering as a gift of loyalty to Kitty Fairy.

One of the many problems with “Gabby’s Dollhouse” is that only a small fraction of the characters in this overstuffed movie truly stand out from the rest. Gabby, Vera, Gigi, Chumley and even wordless cat Marlene are the most memorable characters, while all the other characters in the movie just sort of flit around and jabber a bunch of witless dialogue. Fortune Feimster has a supporting voice role as Refrigerator, an appliance in Gabby’s dollhouse. Hardly anyone who watches this movie will remember anything that Refrigerator said.

“Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie,” which also has forgettable songs written for the film, overloads on cutesy imagery but still has a weird penchant for trying to shoehorn in tacky “fart and poop” jokes, as if it’s trying to appeal to older kids and adults who want “edgy” comedy. For example, there’s a scene where Cakey Cat tries to fart sprinkles out of her cupcake body, but she can’t. “I’ve never felt so empty inside,” Cakey Cat says. It’s a feeling that many viewers will have about the boring and shallow characters in “Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie,” which is just unfunny and unimaginative cartoon chaos.

Universal Pictures will release “Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie” in U.S. cinemas on September 26, 2025.

Review: ‘Scrambled’ (2024), starring Leah McKendrick, Ego Nwodim, Andrew Santino, Adam Rodriguez, Laura Cerón and Clancy Brown

February 14, 2024

by Carla Hay

Leah McKendrick in “Scrambled” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)

“Scrambled” (2024)

Directed by Leah McKendrick

Some language in Spanish with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in the Los Angeles area, the comedy/drama film “Scrambled” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans, Latin people and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A 34-year-old free-spirited bachelorette, who has no idea if she will ever find a life partner or if she’ll ever be ready to be a parent, decides to freeze her eggs anyway while she still looks for love.

Culture Audience: “Scrambled” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in comedies about dating and fertility issues.

Even though “Scrambled” occasionally stumbles into a cliché sitcom tone about a bachelorette in her 30s who’s unhappy in her love life, this adult-oriented comedy has entertaining performances in this story about a single woman who wants to freeze her eggs. “Scrambled” was very obviously influenced by HBO’s 1998 to 2004 comedy series “Sex and the City” (with frank talk and explicit scenes about sex), but “Scrambled” is more of a tribute than a ripoff. Just like in “Sex and the City,” the narrator is a single, liberated woman in her 30s with a messy life of failed romances with ex-boyfriends, financial instability, and the nagging feeling that she should have her life figured out by now.

“Sex and the City” and “Scrambled” also drew inspiration from real-life people. Carrie Bradshaw, the main protagonist of “Sex and the City,” lives in New York City and is a sex columnist. The Carrie Bradshaw character is based on real-life writer Candace Bushnell. Leah McKendrick is the writer, director and star of “Scrambled,” where she portrays main protagonist Nellie Robinson, a Los Angeles-based jewelry designer who works from home and who experiences fertility issues that McKendrick experienced in real life. McKendrick makes an impressive feature-film directorial debut with “Scrambled,” which had its world premiere at the 2023 SXSW Film & TV Festival.

“Scrambled” begins with a somewhat stereotypical setting for a movie about a lovelorn bachelorette: a wedding where she is a bridesmaid. Nellie, who is 34, is at the wedding of her best friend Sheila (played by Ego Nwodim) and wants to make a grand entrance with her date Conor (played by Henry Zebrowski), because she tells Conor it’s a tradition that’s expected of her, as someone who ends up being a bridesmaid at many weddings. In the movie’s opening scene, which takes place before the wedding ceremony begins, Nellie is shown debating with Conor about what type of dance they should start with at the wedding reception. She nixes the idea of doing the Running Man, but Nellie says that recreating iconic dance scenes from “Grease” or “Dirty Dancing” could still be in the realm of possibility.

Nellie goes to check on Sheila in a dressing room and sees that Sheila is a nervous wreck. Sheila babbles to Nellie about Sheila’s groom-to-be Ron (played by Max Adler), by asking this hypothetical question: “Would you fuck Ron for the rest of your life?” It’s Sheila’s way of asking if Nellie thinks Sheila is making the right decision to marry Ron and stay faithful to him. Like a good friend, Nellie says, “Yes.”

Sheila then rambles on to Nellie about how she and Nellie always thought that they weren’t the marrying type, and now here they are on Sheila’s wedding day. Sheila then asks Nellie if Nellie has some cocaine because Sheila wants to do some cocaine before the ceremony. Sheila nearly has a meltdown when Nellie says she doesn’t have any drugs. But then, Nellie remembers she might have some molly. Nellie and Sheila take the molly together—until Sheila abruptly announces that she’s pregnant, and then Nellie orders her to spit out the pill.

This scene sets the tone for the rest of “Scrambled,” which is revels in its raunchiness and crudeness in ways to make viewers laugh. At the wedding, Nellie is very stoned on the molly, but during the reception she gets a sobering lecture from an older friend named Monroe (played by June Diane Raphael), whose time in the movie is brief (less than 10 minutes) but it’s one of the funniest scenes in the movie. Monroe and Nellie are sitting at the same table when Nellie gushes to Monroe about how Nellie considers Monroe to be her “idol,” because Monroe seems to “have it all” as a wife, mother, and the owner of a successful business.

Monroe has brought her only child—a daughter named Zofia (played by Everly Taylor)—to the wedding. Zofia, who’s an energetic child and about 5 or 6 years old, was born when Monroe was in her early 40s, after Monroe went through in vitro fertilization treatments to get pregnant. Monroe then gives a raw and candid confession that although she loves being parent, the process of conceiving and giving birth was hellish for her. (She says it in a way that’s a lot cruder than that.) Monroe spent $50,000 on IVF treatments and says if she had to do it all over again, she would’ve frozen her eggs when she was younger and would’ve had a surrogate for the pregnancy.

Monroe also asks Nellie how her love life is, and Nellie responds that she’s single and actively dating: “It’s a smorgasbord. I’m seeing everyone.” Monroe then looks at Nellie sympathetically and says, “I know you because I was you. And so, the next time you’ve just boned some hot bartender with an app idea, and you’re sitting in his bathroom, staring at his shower encrusted with pubes and that fucking “Fight Club”/”Reservoir Dogs”/”Scarface” poster, I want you to remember my face.”

Monroe adds when she comments on men not having an age limit for conceiving children: “They can be in never never land, never growing up, never aging. But these eggs, those huevos rancheros? They are [aging], those eggs are!” When Monroe asks Nellie how old she is, and Nellie tells her 34, Monroe slaps Nellie on the face, and tells her not to admit that she’s older than 33. Monroe then sternly warns Nellie: “Freeze those eggs!”

After Monroe leaves the table, Nellie makes eye contact with a “hot bartender”(played by Matt Pascua) at the wedding reception and gets a drink from him. She and the bartender end up going back to his place, where they have sex. And sure enough, this bartender is working on app idea that he thinks will make him rich. He’s also got a messy bathroom with a “Scarface” poster hanging up on the wall.

It’s enough to be a wake-up call for Nellie that she’s should be focusing on finding Mr. Right instead of Mr. Right Now. (Something else happens at the bartender’s place, which won’t be revealed in this review, because it’s a sexual encounter mishap that’s supposed to be a sexually explicit comedic moment in the movie.) Nellie knows that there’s no guarantee that she will end up with a life partner/soul mate, and she doesn’t know if or when she’ll be ready to be a parent, but she decides to take Monroe’s advice and freeze her eggs anyway.

Weddings and baby showers are predictable scenarios in comedies that show how never-married women with no children are made to feel inadequate or uncomfortable by certain people who think women aren’t complete people unless they are mothers. “Scrambled” is no different. At a baby shower, Nellie is apparently the only woman there who isn’t a mother or in a committed relationship. When she announces that she’s freezing her eggs, the other women’s overall reaction is to congratulate her but they think she should save her excitement for when she becomes a “real parent.”

The reaction of Nellie’s sexist and narrow-minded father Richard Robinson (played by Clancy Brown) is even more negative. When Nellie tells her parents and brother during a family dinner that she’s freezing her eggs, Richard thinks it’s “voodoo science,” and women should conceive children the “natural” way. Richard is the type of parent who asks Nellie things such as “Where are my grandkids?,” but he doesn’t make those demands of his bachelor son Jesse Robinson (played by Andrew Santino), who’s at least five years older than Nellie.

Jesse is a pompous attorney who lets it be known to Nellie that he thinks she’s a pathetic mess when it comes to her life. Nellie, whose specialty is making butterfly earrings that she sells online, barely makes enough money to pay her bills. Meanwhile, Jesse is the type of cretin who makes misogynistic remarks (just like his father) and brags about being rich.

“Scrambled” has several “family dinner” scenes where Nellie argues with Richard and/or Jesse. Richard’s mild-mannered wife Sonja (played by Laura Cerón), an immigrant who speaks Spanish and English, tries to keep the peace when Richard and their son Jesse have conflicts with Nellie. Things get even more awkward between Nellie and Jesse when she reluctantly asks him to lend her the $8,000 she needs for her egg-harvesting procedures, which are not covered by her health insurance.

Early on in the movie, Nellie makes a remark that women are like avocados when it comes to women’s fertility: There’s a limited tme when they’re considered “ripe,” and then they are considered shriveled-up and useless. This avocado comparison becomes a running joke in the movie, as Nellie keeps checking the insides of avocados to see if they are still ripe and useful.

There’s also a very “Sex and the City”-type long stretch of the movie, when lonely Nellie reaches out to some ex-lovers in a desperate attempt to see if any romantic sparks can be rekindled with any of them. You can easily predict how these “reunions” turn out to be. “Magic Mike” alum Adam Rodriguez, who is one of the headliners of “Scrambled,” portrays Sterling Morales, one of Nellie’s ex-lovers, but Rodriguez’s screen time in “Scrambled” is less than five minutes. Nellie’s most recent serious relationship was with a slightly older man named Shawn (played by Harry Shum Jr.), who is mentioned frequently in the movie. “Scrambled” reveals the reason why Shawn and Nellie broke up and whether or not they get back together.

“Scrambled” works as well as it does because of the engaging screenplay and the very good comedic timing of the cast members. McKendrick has also crafted memorable characters who have mostly realistic flaws and foibles, although her tactless OB/GYN doctor (played by Feodor Chin) is meant to be a hilarious caricature of how doctors can sometimes be unprofessional. There’s a very poignant moment in the movie involving Nellie and her elderly neighbor Parveen (played by Vee Kumari), whom Nellie thinks is uptight and silently judgmental about Nellie’s sex life. Nellie might not be relatable to every woman, but “Scrambled” succeeds in showing that Nellie goes through universally relatable experiences that all reasonably responsible adults go through in making major life decisions that will affect people’s futures.

Lionsgate released “Scrambled” in U.S. cinemas on February 2, 2024. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on March 1, 2024.

Review: ‘The Broken Hearts Gallery, starring Geraldine Viswanathan, Dacre Montgomery, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Molly Gordon, Phillipa Soo, Arturo Castro and Bernadette Peters

September 11, 2020

by Carla Hay

“The Broken Hearts Gallery”

Directed by Natalie Krinsky

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, the romantic comedy “The Broken Hearts Gallery” features a cast of Asians and white people (with a few African Americans and Latinos) representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: A 26-year-old woman, who’s been dumped by an ex-boyfriend and fired from her art-gallery job, tries to get over her problems by helping an aspiring hotel owner decorate his boutique hotel, even though her personal style clashes with his.

Culture Audience: “The Broken Hearts Gallery” will appeal primarily to viewers who like formulaic romantic comedies that have people with mostly relatable personalities.

Molly Gordon, Geraldine Viswanathan and Phillipa Soo in “The Broken Hearts Gallery” (Photo by George Kraychyk/TriStar Pictures)

The romantic comedy “The Broken Hearts Gallery” is so unapologetically mushy and predictable that it would be absolutely a chore to sit through this movie if it didn’t have its share of charming moments. Much of the credit goes to star Geraldine Viswanathan, whose quick-witted comedic timing and her keen ability to bring a sense of fun to the story end up saving what could have been a mostly forgettable and cliché film.

“The Broken Hearts Gallery” is the feature-film debut of writer/director Natalie Krinsky, who previously worked as an occasional writer on “Gossip Girl,” the primetime soap opera about upper-class young people in New York City. “Broken Hearts Gallery” is also set in New York City, but the young people at the center of the story are definitely less privileged than the wealthy scions of “Gossip Girl.”

Lucy Gulliver (played by Viswanathan), the story’s 26-year-old protagonist, is an assistant at an upscale and trendy art gallery. She has dreams of owning her own art gallery someday. Lucy lives with her two best friends—sarcastic and bossy Amanda (played by Molly Gordon) and womanizing lesbian Nadine (played by Phillipa Soo)—and they have all been close pals for years.

Amanda is currently a law student, but a running joke in the movie is that she’s always giving unsolicited legal advice, as if she’s already a lawyer. Amanda is also in a relationship with a guy named Jeff (played by Nathan Dales), who is mostly silent and henpecked by Amanda. (When Jeff finally starts talking, it’s one of the funnier parts of the movie.) Meanwhile, Nadine has a thing for dating Russian models, but then she gets bored and usually ends the relationship to move on to her next conquest.

The beginning of the movie shows the trio of gal pals while they were seniors in high school in an unnamed suburb of New York, with Lucy already planning to live in the big city. Lucy has just gotten dumped by a boyfriend, and Amanda and Nadine are comforting her while Lucy is nursing her broken heart. It’s a scenario that gets repeated more than once in the movie.

One of Lucy’s quirks is that she likes to keep mementos and knickknacks, including those that remind of her of ex-boyfriends. She freely admits she’s a pack rat, while some people might describe her collecting habit as hoarding, because she keeps things such as toenail clippings. Her hoarding isn’t at a dangerous level, but it’s odd and more than a little creepy.

Eight years after graduating from high school, Lucy’s life seems to be going fairly well for her. She’s been dating a 35-year-old co-worker named Max Vora (played by Utkarsh Ambudkar), who is the gallery’s recently promoted director. Max and Lucy have been keeping their romance somewhat hidden from their colleagues because they don’t want it to be a distraction at work. Lucy gushes about Max to Nadine and Amanda, by describing him as such a perfect romantic boyfriend that he cooks dinner for her. Meanwhile, Nadine and Amanda secretly take bets on how long Lucy’s most recent romance will last.

Lucy idolizes her boss Eva Woolf (played by Bernadette Peters), the gallery owner who named the art gallery after herself. Eva doesn’t have much tolerance for people she thinks are flaky and dumb. You know where this is going, of course. Lucy will make a fool out of herself at work because of something to do with Max. This embarrassing incident happens during a big exhibit opening at the gallery, where Eva, all of the gallery’s employees and many important clients are in attendance.

Lucy has been asked to get up on stage in front of the assembled crowd and introduce Max as the gallery’s new director. As she’s about to give her introductory speech, Lucy sees Max canoodling in the audience with a woman whom she recognizes as Dr. Amelia Black (played by Tattiawna Jones), Max’s most recent ex-girlfriend. Lucy has already had too much to drink because she was nervous about making this speech. And so, when Lucy sees Max getting too close to this other woman, Lucy goes into a tailspin and has an epic, jealous meltdown in front of the entire audience. As if that weren’t enough, drunken Lucy ends up tripping and falling flat on her face.

As Lucy runs out of the gallery in a humiliated daze, Max follows her outside and explains that Amelia was living in Paris but has recently moved back to New York City. And now, Max tells Lucy that he wants to get back together with Amelia. And there’s more bad news for Lucy: Eva was so mortified by Lucy’s public meltdown that she’s also sent Max to tell Lucy that she’s been fired.

As she’s reeling from this extremely bad night, Lucy just wants to go home, so she gets into a car that she thinks is the rideshare that she had booked. As she starts to tell the driver about her “worst night ever,” the driver repeatedly tells her that he’s not her rideshare driver, but Lucy is so absorbed in her misery that she won’t listen. Finally, the driver, whose name is Nick (played by Dacre Montgomery), decides to placate Lucy and drives her home.

When she gets home, Lucy realizes the man who drove her home isn’t the rideshare driver she booked. She’s once again embarrassed, but she tries to turn it around and make Nick look bad by accusing him of being a creep. She also comments that for all she knows, he could be a serial killer, and now he knows where she lives. Will this be the last time that Lucy sees Nick? Of course not.

In several very contrived situations, Nick just happens to be nearby at the exact moment that a lovelorn Lucy sees Max and makes a pathetic attempt to get Max’s attention. One of those moments is the next time that Lucy and Nick see each other. Lucy has followed Max into a restaurant, where he’s having a dinner date with Amelia. The restaurant hostess tries to block Lucy from going over to the table because Lucy doesn’t have a reservation. And right at that moment, when Amelia is about to act like a psycho ex-girlfriend and charge toward Max, Nick shows up and prevents Lucy from approaching Max, who sees Lucy anyway.

As Nick steers Lucy away from this potentially embarrassing situation for her, she gets very irritated with him and asks Nick if he’s been stalking her. Oh, the irony. Lucy and Nick get to talking, and he tells her a little bit more about himself. He’s trying to fulfill his dream of opening a boutique hotel called the Chloe Hotel. However, what he doesn’t tell her right away and what very few people in his life know is that Nick is almost broke and headed for a possible financial disaster since he poured his life savings into the hotel, which is nowhere near being completed.

One person who knows about Nick’s money problems is his best friend/business partner Marcos (played by Arturo Castro), who hasn’t been paid for a while and has decided to take another job because his wife Randy (played by Megan Ferguson) is pregnant, and they need the money. Marcos has a wry sense of humor, which goes a long way in being a counterbalance to some of the sappier moments of the movie.

Nick shows Lucy the unfinished hotel, which used to be a YMCA building. Lucy has a garbage bag with her that contains several old mementos from her ex-boyfriends, including Max. Nick, who calls her a hoarder, tells Lucy that his style is the complete opposite of hers, because he’s a minimalist. Meanwhile, there’s a large empty picture frame in the hotel that Lucy spontaneously uses to hang up one of the items in the garbage bag: a necktie that used to belong to Max.

And because Lucy is a wannabe art gallery owner. she calls this room in the hotel the Broken Heart Gallery, because of this “art display.” She scrawls a note next to the frame that explains why this necktie is from an ex-love and why it’s being discarded. Not long after that day, Nick tells her that an anonymous person came into the hotel and must have seen this necktie display because the person hung up an item with a note that it’s also from an ex-love.

Lucy takes a photo of this burgeoning art exhibit and posts it on social media. It becomes a such a viral hit that she gets the fundraising idea that people can start stop by the unfinished hotel to drop off mementos from ex-lovers and leave messages that can be displayed in the Broken Heart Gallery. Visitors can also give donations as part of the gallery exhibit. The intention for this idea is that people who contribute to the gallery can get closure from painful breakups, because the gallery displays will be cathartic enough to help them move on.

And when Nick mentions to Lucy that Marcos got another job and the hotel’s interior designer quit, Lucy volunteers to be the hotel’s interior designer. Nick says no, but after much persistence from Lucy and much hemming and hawing from Nick, she ends up being the hotel’s interior designer. Nick and Lucy don’t really discuss payment for this job, but even if they did, it’s very easy to see how this movie is going to end.

Before that happens, there are the usual shenanigans in romantic comedies that have this type of would-be couple. “The Broken Hearts Gallery” uses the old “opposites attract” trope as much as possible to show how Lucy and Nick get on each other’s nerves, but they also can’t seem to stay away from each other. Lucy is high-strung and kooky, while Nick is laid-back and analytical. The character of Nick is somewhat generic, and his main purpose in the movie is to play the straight man to Lucy’s wackiness.

Nick and Lucy become platonic friends, but have conflicts with each other, while Lucy puts herself in more embarrassing situations in an effort to get back together with Max. Nick’s and Lucy’s friends (and viewers who’ve seen enough romantic comedies) know where this is all headed. But, of course, the two people who are supposed to end up together are the last people to admit it.

Underage teenage girls are the target audience for “The Broken Hearts Gallery,” so things don’t get too raunchy in the movie. Adults watching this film will probably wish that the movie had more mature humor, since too many of the so-called adults in this movie act like they’re still in high school. (To see Viswanathan in a rowdier comedy film, check out 2018’s “Blockers,” where she was a standout in the movie too.)

Lucy is proud of her eccentricities, but some of her irrationally jealous behavior panders to some awful stereotypes about how pathetic and catty women can be when it comes to fighting over an ex-love. Lucy handles love in an uncomfortable and awkward manner that’s sometimes realistic and sometimes too over-the-top. This movie is a romantic comedy, so it isn’t supposed to be about realism all the time.

However, some of the dialogue is absolutely cringeworthy. In a scene where Lucy and Nick have some alone time and open up to each other, Lucy says to him: “We’re good together, you and me. The monster and the human. Humans need monsters to stir things up. And monsters need humans to fix everything they break. It’s just simple science.”

One of the more charming qualities of Lucy is that she’s more optimistic than Nick is about life and how to deal with problems. When more problems start to pile on Nick, he wants to abandon his dream to build the hotel, but Lucy gives him a pep talk and encourages him not to give up so easily. Meanwhile, Nick slowly starts to show that he has a romantic side, which is refreshing to Lucy, who says she’s used to men not being supportive of her and her dreams.

“The Broken Hearts Club” also has a very good supporting cast that makes the material a lot more engaging than it should be. Gordon, Soo and Castro all have moments when they somewhat steal scenes. (Gordon’s comedic timing is the most natural-looking and funniest of the supporting characters.)

And there are a few other supporting characters who are in Nick and Lucy’s world, including an Eva Woolf Gallery co-worker who’s nicknamed Harvard (played by Ego Nwodim), because she’s a know-it-all who likes to brag that she went to Harvard University, and she constantly chastises Lucy about being clueless about life. Celebrity chef Roy Choi has a cameo as himself. Suki Waterhouse plays someone who has a past connection to someone in the movie.

“The Broken Hearts Gallery” has the obligatory karaoke scene, which seems to be a staple of every other predictable romantic comedy. There’s also the “big argument” scene, where the would-be couple has an estrangement. There’s absolutely no suspense over whether or not they’ll kiss and make up by the end of the story.

There are a few “surprise” twists to the movie that aren’t shocking because it all just adds up to more schmaltz. “The Broken Hearts Gallery” is not for hardcore cynics, but it’s a predictable and harmless movie that’s made enjoyable mainly because of the winning performance by Viswanathan.

TriStar Pictures released “The Broken Hearts Gallery” in U.S. cinemas on September 11, 2020.