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Nobody Wants This is a romcom drama where Joanne (Kristen Bell – The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window) has an unsuccessful love life, with her latest date seeing her walk out after 30 minutes. Well, are long as you gave it a chance, eh(?)
Meanwhile, we quickly cut to the other main lead, Noah (Adam Brody – American Fiction), where his girlfriend, Rebecca, has chanced upon his engagement ring for her before he’s ready to pop the question.
However, the two soon meet at mutual friend Ashley’s (Sherry Cola – Joy Ride) dinner party, leading me to wonder if some of this is improvised, since when Brody’s opening a wine bottle for Ms Bell, and the cork breaks off part-way through, it doesn’t feel like it was intended, and they’re ad-libbing, and it works very well.
Nobody Wants This is also title of Joanne’s relationships-based podcast she records with her sister, Morgan (Justine Lupe), and there’s a side-plot where they’re trying to get a deal with Spotify.
But back to the main pairing, and while I’m not in the least bit religious, neither is Joanne, so when she hooks up with rabbi Noah, will it work out? Well, they say opposites attract, so it could do, although things are still a bit fragile with her parents, as they split up because her father declared he was now gay.
This isn’t a laugh-out-loud sitcom, but has a number of giggles along the way, such as when Joanne says, “Say something rabbinical”, to which Noah replies, “There’s a fiddler on the roof(!)”. Plus, a scene with an errant phone reading out text messages, and another where Joanne rightly declares to Morgan when it comes to paying for goods and services, “Who even uses cash?”
Yep, I find paying by card so much easier, too.
Additionally, with every Jewish mother trying to set up their niece or daughter with Noah, they’re not impressed that he’s taking a shine to Joanne, because she’s not Jewish, thus seeing some of them label her a “shiksa”, which is a bit rude.
Overall, given that there’s very little stopping their relationship from working out, we get to the point very early on, there doesn’t feel like ther’s too much to add on that necessitates another eight episodes.
Hence, this just feels rather predictable, and I’m not sure how much of it I’ll want to see. That said, I get that it’ll be more about the journey than the destination.
Perhaps a better title for Nobody Wants This is “Some People Want This, But Not Everybody Needs A Whole Ten Episodes Of This”.
Thanks to our friends at Netflix for the screener prior to release.
Nobody Wants This is not available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD, but is on Netflix from today.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 25-30 minutes per episode (10 episodes)
Release date: September 26th 2024
Studio: Netflix
Format: 2.00:1
Series Directors: Hannah Fidell, Karen Maine, Greg Mottola, Oz Rodriguez, Lawrence Trilling
Creator: Erin Foster
Writers: Erin Foster, Ryann Werner, Jane Becker, Lindsay Golder, Ron Weiner, Barbie Adler, Craig DiGregorio, Pat Regan, Niki Schwartz-Wright, Neel Shah, Noelle Valdivia
Music: Duncan Blickenstaff
Cast:
Joanne: Kristen Bell
Noah Roklov: Adam Brody
Morgan: Justine Lupe
Sasha Roklov: Timothy Simons
Esther Roklov: Jackie Tohn
Ashley: Sherry Cola
Bina Roklov: Tovah Feldshuh
Ilan Roklov: Paul Ben-Victor
Lynn: Stephanie Faracy
Rabbi Cohen: Stephen Tobolowsky
Rebecca: Emily Arlook
Miriam: Shiloh Bearman
Henry: Michael Hitchcock
Ryann: D’Arcy Carden
Rabbi Shira: Leslie Grossman
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.