Girlfriend's Day (2017) User Reviews (38)

1 hour long short story

[askebisgaard · 5/10 · 14 February 2017]

I had no expectations and didn't look into the movie before I watched it. I just put this on, knowing Bob Odenkirk was in it.

I don't really understand why, but it seemed like the plot was intentionally nonsensical and simple. It was a weird mix of very predictable and very confusing. Like a greeting card, perhaps?

I enjoy experimental movies just as well as popular ones, but after watching it, I can't help but feel like it should either have been shorter, or had more content.

What I'm really trying to wrap more nicely than it feels, is that I think the writing felt unfinished. Or perhaps the first sketch after a writer's block. Yeah, that bad. I think the only moral or interesting point brought up in the movie was the quote in the opening scene.

Yet, I still enjoyed Bob's acting, but none of the characters really stood out to me in this one. I guess most notable to me was Natasha Lyonne, playing her usual playful character and Steven Michael Quezada playing his usual dutiful and determined working-class character. Amber Tamblyn had a few interesting moments as well - but it all felt very rushed and underdeveloped.

I'll be very surprised if this will end up rated highly. I think I might even have overrated it.

Quirky at Best

[wtmerrett · 5/10 · 16 February 2017]

This was a short fairly low budget picture that got made due to Bob Odenkirk and his name after Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. If we had to see the Los Angeles river flood channel (or whatever they call it) one more time I was going to scream. The city must charge very little to shoot there at it was almost a character. I found a few places to laugh but not enough to recommend this as a comedy. It is an offbeat quirky picture with some nice scenes but nothing more. The one standout performance was Amber Tamblyn as Jill.

What Saul Goodman did before Law School

[leftbanker-1 · 6/10 · 15 February 2017]

This could have been the prequel to Better Call Saul which, of course, is the prequel to Breaking Bad. For better or for worse I like the fact that there is a market for these little pieces because we definitely need a bridge between a full feature film and a series. I had said many times that what is wrong with most movies and series is that they have no idea about how much time they need to tell their story. A film needs to go 90 minutes and most can't entertain for that long (if they entertain at all). Most series have the idea of going on and on until the viewers start throwing rotten fruit at the screen. Are you really trying to tell me that you need seven seasons to tell a story about zombies? This went an hour and five minutes which was about perfect to tell this odd little tale.

Very slow pace, very thin plot

[Gordon-11 · 10 May 2020]

The pace is very slow. The plot is very thin, and lacks intensity or thrill. It just could have easily been shortened to half the time. The plot is a bit unlikely and contrived.

Saturday Night Live Sketch

[oppec · 1/10 · 13 October 2018]

This might have been funny as a five minute SNL sketch, but it didn't work as a movie. Don't waste your time.

A quirky, subtle fun-bite

[Russ_Thompson · 7/10 · 23 February 2017]

Not for everyone admittedly, but rejecting it simply for the reason it is something off-beat and irregular is just a mistake.

This 70 minutes long satiric comedy sketch gives one an askew glimpse into the greeting-card and holiday industry.

Simple yet complex. Movie lovers will find little echoes of some films and TV-shows mixed in this bit. Most palpable influences I dare say were Enemy(Villeneuve), Punch-drunk Love, Dr. Strangelove, and for some oddly surprising reason some parts of Mulholland Dr.

I found it to be filled with heart, brains and subtlety.

Nothing serious, just a well written, very well acted and directed elongated sketch. Some will be bored to tears, some others (like me) will be enjoying this one with an idiotic smile on their faces. Watch and see for your self.

The Worst of Netflix

[bruninho-loopes · 1/10 · 17 February 2017]

Well, I didn't really have great expectations for this movie, but, even so, it was a total let down. The plot is not just confusing, it's also unpolished, messy and BAD. The 1h10 of the whole movie felt more like three or four hours for me. Bob Odenkirk is a really good actor and, in fact, I really don't think any of the parts played in the movie (aside from Stacy Keach's) were poorly executed at all, but in the end, the script was just unsavable. I can honestly say that 1 star is almost overrating it, and I wouldn't bear watching this film ever again. I can't say I just don't recommend it, as I actually recommend that all of you just STAY AWAY from it.

Off-kilter drama

[Craftor2-43-858345 · 7/10 · 19 February 2017]

I knew nothing about this movie before turning it on, but assumed it would be a comedy, from the main few cast members. Boy, was I wrong. It has a little humor, but no big laughs. It was a drama somewhere between The Big Lebowski and a sendup of a Hitchcock thriller, with a few moments that were almost out of a Wes Anderson film. I'd recommend this if you like the quiet and surrealistic storytelling of Lebowski. The story doesn't make much sense when viewed through the lens of realism, but should be viewed with a bit of whimsy. Bob Odenkirk gives a reliably good performance, as we've come to expect from him after his more serious, introspective work on Better Call Saul, and the rest of the cast present a perfect landscape for his character. This film might not be for everyone, but it's short enough (just over an hour) that it won't put you out much to give it a watch, and the action, while sometimes confusing, moves quickly enough that it keeps your attention from start to finish.

Seriously

[lettingitgo · 1/10 · 28 June 2020]

Why, in pretty much every movie, is the lead male cast @ 20 years older than the lead female cast?

a writer's movie

[Abby-9 · 7/10 · 21 February 2017]

So, you're still in bed at 1 p.m. composing comments on friends' FaceBook shares, eating the other half of a stevia-sweetened chocolate bar from the night before, and then you move on to Netflix to get further from reality--where you see the face of beloved Bob Odenkirk in a harmless sounding title: "Girlfriends Day". You give it a look-see. You don't turn from it in irritation or boredom--it's holding you with the inscrutable power of untapped human potential. Every character looking at Odenkirk seems to be waiting for "something" to happen. Then his landlord takes action. And then I'm clapping for a brilliant moment, and barking out loud with laughter from my unused vocal chords at another moment. I get comfortable. I know that I, too, like Odenkirk's character, will write again. This film is exquisite.

How a director can screw an entire movie

[thedoctor98 · 5/10 · 2 April 2018]

The script, the actors, the production values here are excellent.

There's just one thing that ruins it.

The director. Michael Paul Stephenson decided "I want this to be a slice of life movie", instead of a film noir movie. He could have made this artistic and hilarious, bu the decided instead to screw the entire production over. The guy just totally ruined what could have been a fantastic film.

He's a dickhead. Watch this film and try to imagine it much darker, much more stylized, and like an homage to the 1940s/1950s films of Fred McMurray, Humphrey Bogart. Laurent Bacall and Ingrid Bergman. This could have been so much better. SO much better.

I guess I'm the only one that loved this...

[harveylocust · 10/10 · 21 August 2021]

I've been wanting to check out Nobody. Not having 'free' access to it yet, when I saw this pop up on my Netflix front page, I thought this would be a good substitute until I saw it was one of the lowest 'matches I had ever seen. It was like 50 something percent. I didn't even know they went that low. That piqued my curiosity even more. When I saw the run time of and hour five, I was in. So todays lesson is nobody better than nobody. This movie crushes on so many levels, from the ridiculous plot to the devastating details. Do not pass this one by. I will be making an IMDB account now just so I can start rating these movies, because this score is asinine!

Short but sweet

[kosmasp · 7/10 · 5 August 2017]

This is really short, almost to a degree where I was thinking if the running time indicates this to be a TV show. It isn't, it's a feature length that just is way shorter than the 90 minutes we are used to. And it's not a bad thing, quite the opposite. Odenkirk is really something, the way he portrays the character of his ... just amazing and really grabbing the attention of the viewer.

Having said that, the script is as quirky as it can get. You have quite a few actors you may know if you watch the odd movie or two (or a hundred). Also some TV shows, like Mad Men. The humor is dry and awkward at times, which is something you must like otherwise you might have issues with the movie itself. So you are warned or let's say prepared for what is ahead. It's fun, it's short and it is entertaining. I really had a good time, flaws and all.

The sign of a really bad movie.

[arclinecreative · 1/10 · 22 July 2022]

The sign of a really really bad movie is when your 1/2 into it before you realize you've watched it a couple of years ago and didn't like it then either.

Pretty much a complete waste of time.

[TxMike · 20 February 2017]

I came across this Netflix short movie, just over one hour. It has been raining all day, I needed something to watch.

I had enjoyed Odenkirk in 'Breaking Bad' and as 'Better Call Saul', he is a fun actor to watch, he creates interesting roles.

But this one, also written by him, falls mostly flat. Bob Odenkirk is Ray Wentworth, writer of romantic cards. In fact for three years in a row, a few years earlier, he was recognized as card writer of the year. But now we find him uninspired, unable to write anything meaningful. One friend thinks it started when his wife left him three years earlier.

He loses his job, he can't write, he can't pay his rent. When he learns of a contest, to write a new type of card, for Girlfriend's Day. In his favor it is only open to new writers or writers who are currently out of work.

Along the way, in his favorite bar, he meets Amber Tamblyn, 20 years his junior, as Jill. The meeting seems random, they become friends, they kiss, the spend the night together, she becomes his girlfriend. But not all is as it seems.

The Problem I have with this short movie is it has no substance, just a silly story, silly situations, and a few situations where Ray gets beat up. It is just a vehicle to give the actors jobs and for Netflix to produce some subscriber-only content.

I am disappointed.

Whimsical but just too glum

[middlefarne · 4/10 · 3 January 2022]

An oddball mystery-comedy set in an imagined world of greetings card writers and their hangers-on. It is a goofy idea, played straight and with a very bleak aesthetic that I found difficult to like. Just too dry for me - nobody to root for in a world that I never got into.

Just ok.

[wwxx-83892 · 6/10 · 14 July 2020]

I didn't think this was too bad, I thought it would be in the beginning but throughout the movie all was fine...don't hold anything for it though..

Huh?

[canuckteach · 4/10 · 19 February 2017]

I packed it after maybe 10 minutes. This writer of greeting cards loses his job, and apparently starts another similar job for higher stakes.

Before we get to that, however, there is a bizarre scene wherein our man hears moaning from another room, and enters to find a giant but hostile owl-like creature 'involved' with an unseen female. huh? Too rich for my blood. Click! No, I don't want to know what this was supposed to be, or what it symbolized (I think it was some kind of dream sequence). So, don't write me an explanation. I ain't interested. I am not into weird. Enter at own risk.

weird feelings

[nok-85376 · 6/10 · 17 August 2023]

This is a really odd movie obevisly I kept watching beacuse of Bob Odenkirk hes amaizing, but the movie isnt really great it felt like a fever dream or some movie with hiden meaning behinde it.

Also it made me laugh how his ex wife who left him looked like kim in his dreams but when we meet her trurns out they dont look anything alike.

Anyway Bob is great I hope I see him in better movies tho.

It also felt like a poilt of some intresting show its funny a lil bit disapointing and the actors are great

also i love how Gomez apeared in the movie haha

and I have nothing left to say but you know Imdb thing.

What could have been a great Hallmark parody ruined

[robertjoeblog · 4/10 · 22 July 2023]

My guess is this started as an idea to make a parody Hallmark romcom, with the male romantic lead a down-on his luck writer for a Hallmark-type greeting card company.

The Hallmark template is all there, a competition opens the way for a guy who has lost his job to regain his mojo, get the girl... Problem is Bob Odenkirk, who turns this into yet another Breaking Bad spinoff.

He plays his usual role of Saul, but even tougher, which is extremely unlikely for a guy who is supposed to be a nebbish greeting card writer.

The greeting card owners are thugs who make the druglords in Breaking Bad look like choir boys.

None of the saccharine which makes Hallmark movies so easy to poke fun at survived this mess. The ending where the "good guy" wins the contest struck me that the director suddenly remembered there was some plot originally which he'd forgotten.

could be better.

[arakirokuro · 6/10 · 29 August 2021]

I do not truly get it why, but it appeared just like the plot was intentioned absurd and straightforward. It was a peculiar blend of exceptionally unsurprising and exceptionally confounding. Like a welcoming card, perhaps? I appreciate exploratory motion pictures fair as well as well known ones, but after observing it, I can't offer assistance but feel like it ought to either have been shorter, or had more content. What I'm truly attempting to wrap more pleasantly than it feels, is that I think the composing felt unfinished. Or maybe the primary outline after a writer's piece. Yeah, that terrible. I think the only moral or curiously point brought up within the motion picture was the cite within the opening scene.

not good

[Faster1281 · 5/10 · 12 January 2019]

Waste of time but good acting 5 points for the lead

A nice little absurdity

[stills-6 · 8/10 · 10 June 2017]

Some will indulge the weirdness, others won't. But if you bail you'll be missing out on a nice little absurdity. It's not exactly laugh-out- loud funny, but it does have its moments, and the cast mostly seems to go along with the idea, playing it mostly as a deadpan film-noir parody. If you think of it that way, it all might fall into place. Odenkirk's world-weary greeting card writer frequenting a card-writer's bar is just a small example. Again, the oddness will put off some people, which is understandable. The narrative, if taken at face value is just as laughable as many other thrillers, but because it's being self-conscious, it has the charm of self-deprecating irony. It can get self-indulgent with how much it falls into this area, and it really has to work to get over its Saturday-Night-Live style setting but I think that's part of the point -- and it does get over itself quite well. And the fact that I'm in love with Amber Tamblyn has nothing to do with this positive review.

Great for fans of Odenkirk

[fostrhod · 6/10 · 3 January 2023]

Bob Odenkirk plays Ray Wentworth, A greeting card writer. No don't stop reading, well you can if you intend to watch the film immediately. If mot read on. Greeting cards are dull and only bought for those special occasions, almost as an after thought, think on.

Greeting cards are edgy and dangerous and potentially deadly to those who fall foul of the big business cogs whirring away in the background. Wentworth former card writer of the year, down on his luck, lacking inspiration loses his job. The card industry need to create extra interest and a new market for the industry create "Girlfriends Day" Cue various dudes try to inspire / coerce Wentworth to write that award winning card for the big day. Its a bit like Fargo in that there's various desperate villains who will do whatever they can to get that verse. 2 ex Nazi's for example. The film features Steven Michael Quezeda (Gomey) and Ed Begley Jr (better Call Saul and of course Odenkirk so there is a bit of a BB BCS crossover. Which isn't a bad thing.

Odenkirk is great by the way and feasibly the character isn't a million miles away from Saul.

About a writer, most a poet!

[Reno-Rangan · 5/10 · 24 May 2017]

At least it tried to be something fresh. The Netflix's experimental films giving great opportunities for small directors and stars. Not all the flicks clicks, but different than what we usually get from other production houses. So that's how I ended up watching it and its an appreciable effort, but the film was average. Although the end scene was really good, I mean that homeless person part.

The film is about an infamous greeting card writer and tells how his professional life stumbles upon. While trying to make a comeback, he has to face a couple of trouble, including his unexpected romance and to keep up the promise he had made to a rich guy. Till the final scene they kept the momentums surrounding them both. So it feels like an intentional drag, since the whole film depended on those things and nothing else.

Worth watching for Bob Odenkirk. The rest of the cast was not bad. Whatever the concept is, like, about a writer, kind of poet, but it avoids to exposing us the character how great he's with his work. So this is not a film with full details and should be watched without any expectation, or else better not think to pick it.

5/10