Overboard (2018)

(On Cable TV, March 2020) If there’s a 1980s comedy that warranted the indignity of being heavily changed for its remake, it’s 1987’s Overboard—not every comic conceit is comfortable, and the earlier film’s depiction of an amnesia victim being gaslit into domestic life is faaar less amusing now than in the wild and coarse 1980s. Alas, thirty years later, the new Overboard’s idea for making this less creepy is to… gender flip it? As if, I guess, the male gender deserves deception? As an exhibit for the 2010s′ internalized misandry, this remake isn’t the worst, but it’s remarkably up there. Granted, this may be overanalyzing things when it comes to a fluffy romantic comedy—despite the dodgy premise, Overboard is really sweet, unthreatening and forgettable. You can even make a case that it’s about class rather than gender—but I don’t entirely buy that. Anna Farris in the lead role helps further defang it, even if Eugenio Derbez ends up stealing most scenes. This being said, the lacklustre execution of the film may be its most vexing aspect: there’s little here that’s not the original plot filtered through familiar screenwriter tics, and some unremarkable direction from Rob Greenberg doesn’t elevate the material. In the end, this version of Overboard is either something you’ll watch casually and shrug, or watch more closely and find increasingly disappointing.