Add Decider on Google Where to Stream: Drawn Together Powered by Reelgood More On: Ester Exposito Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Bandidos’ Season 2 On Netflix, Where One Of The Thieves’ Pasts Prompts Her To Push For The Big Score Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Bandidos’ On Netflix, Where A Quirky Group Of Thieves Improvise A Plan To Steal Mayan Treasure ‘Élite’ Sex Scenes: Every Threesome, Hookup, and Major Horny Moment on the Netflix Show ‘Élite’ Season 4 Sex Scenes: Threesomes, Shower Romps, and Lesbian Chocolate Parties Sometimes a lesser-known global title resonates with a streaming service’s subscriber base around the globe. That seems to be the case for Drawn Together, a new Spanish-language thriller that’s been stationed near the top of the Prime Video charts. Set in both New York City and Spain, the film gives a familiar conceit — the handsome bodyguard who falls in love with the tough-yet-vulnerable woman he’s in charge of projecting — the modern romance-novel treatment. (That is to say, yes, it is based on a book, and yes, there is a sequel to that book.) But is it worth your time to stream at home?
The Gist: Marfil (Ester Expósito) is the daughter of a wealthy Spanish businessman, attending college in New York City — although the only class we really see her going to is the ballet class that her father doesn’t know about. (Her dead mother was a professional ballerina. It’s a whole thing.) Going for a post-ballet run in Central Park, she is attacked, drugged, and briefly kidnapped — only she’s returned a day later, seemingly unharmed. Police unconvincingly chalk it up to drunken miscreants, but her father suspects (without telling her) that it may have something to do with his shady business dealings. Returning to Spain to deal with work, he hires Sebastián (Hugo Diego Garcia) to live in Marfil’s (extremely spacious) Manhattan apartment and watch over her at all hours, to keep her safe. Though Marfil initially chafes at this arrangement while Sebastián attempts to keep things cordial and professional, well, perhaps you can take a guess at what develops between the two of them, especially once he starts training her with self-defense trips. Those might come in handy, as you might guess that a mysterious one-off kidnapping may not be represent the full extent of the danger Marfil finds herself in.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Not only will it remind you of The Bodyguard, it seems to remind the characters in the movie of that 1992 Kevin Costner/Whitney Houston romance, too. At one point, they go to see a revival of the movie at Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill Cinemas. Sebastián protests, but Marfil insists, saying that the theater is also showing An Officer and a Gentleman, but she prefers this one.
Performance Worth Watching: Ester Expósito is playing a stock part, but her big, expressive eyes make Marfil fun to watch even as she’s going through the motions.
Sex And Skin: OK, in a sexy movie, there’s desire-based teasing — not having the central characters fall into bed until there’s only 30 minutes or so left in the film — and there’s genuine withholding, like having that sex scene be mostly a bra-on (her), shorts-unremoved (him) affair. They do both eventually get briefly naked, but it’s so dimly lit and brief that it may not seem worth the 75-minute wait.
Our Take: It makes sense that Drawn Together would become a major living-room hit, at least on paper. It combines the kind of straightforward romance that streaming indulges more often than its big-screen counterparts with the kind of small-scale one-good-tough-guy action thriller that, well, also seems to flourish on streaming (see the decidedly non-romantic filmography of Jason Statham). Something for the moms, dads, and YAs all in one! The hitch here is that Drawn Together very much feels like a half-and-halfer. In the better romantic thrillers, the two genres only intensify each other, the romance upping the thriller stakes while the action and adrenaline only increase the romantic breathlessness. Here, the two halves feel mostly mismatched. The thriller material interrupts the romance just when it’s getting steamy, while also not lasting long enough to deliver satisfaction on its own (so to speak).
To smooth the film over, director Óscar Pedraza bathes the whole thing in a kind of yellow-ish-green tint and drops occasional overfamiliar soundtrack cues that don’t make much sense (why does “White Rabbit” play so extensively over some climactic business?). Pedraza also doesn’t show much affinity for what little action the movie affords, like a haphazardly directed runaway-car sequence. Most galling, the movie undermines a decent third-act twist with revealing itself as, you guessed it, an unfinished Part One. It doesn’t just set up a sequel; it announces that the rest of the movie is coming later with Drawn Apart. There must be some audiences who love this kind of serialized, TV-like approach to movies, but just as surely, some will be annoyed to sit down to watch a movie that’s apparently only half the story.
Our Call: Look, if you want to watch two attractive people fall in love and run around a bit (and also commute insanely fast between Spain and Manhattan, a trip that happens with almost no sweat twice in the movie’s last 40 minutes), there are worse Bodyguard-style movies out there than Drawn Together. In fact, The Bodyguard is arguably a little worse in terms of how turgid it is! (That one runs nearly 30 minutes longer; at least Drawn Together doesn’t have much streaming bloat, unless you count it being part one of two, which you probably should.) Strictly on its own terms, though, you can safely SKIP IT.
Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.
