Is there a genre for bizarre films where the plot and climax have no connection to each other? Along with that, the title of the movie had nothing to do with the actual plot of the film. All of this and more peculiar things keep happening in Spin Me Round. A story of a restaurant employee who is sent to an exotic location for training purposes and sets off a chain of events. These occurrences lead her to discover something mysterious about her employers.
Spoilers Ahead
Amber, The Chosen One
The movie begins with a montage of Amber Ruffman, a management-level employee with Tuscan Grove, a chain of Italian cuisine restaurants run by an Italian businessman named Nick Martucci. The montage helps the viewers understand her workflow and her contribution to making the Bakersfield franchise successful and the best Italian restaurant in the area. She comes across as a hardworking woman,...
Spoilers Ahead
Amber, The Chosen One
The movie begins with a montage of Amber Ruffman, a management-level employee with Tuscan Grove, a chain of Italian cuisine restaurants run by an Italian businessman named Nick Martucci. The montage helps the viewers understand her workflow and her contribution to making the Bakersfield franchise successful and the best Italian restaurant in the area. She comes across as a hardworking woman,...
- 6/28/2023
- by Smriti Kannan
- Film Fugitives
[Editor’s note: The following story contains some spoilers for “Spin Me Round.”]
It’s difficult to dispute Aubrey Plaza’s versatility. From embarking on a credit card-swiping crime spree in “Emily the Criminal” to just maybe being the new Lara Croft in a “Tomb Raider” reboot and even taking apart the very concept of acting in “Black Bear,” Plaza has gone out of her way to deconstruct any attempts at typecasting her.
So when “Spin Me Round,” the fourth collaboration with longtime creative partner and husband Jeff Baena, placed Plaza back in Italy after “The Little Hours” and upcoming Sicily-set Season 2 of “The White Lotus,” it was clear no one knew what to expect of her character. And boy, does Plaza keep us on our toes in the dark comedy that simultaneously subverts rom-com expectations and tells an all-to-true #MeToo story enhanced by a subtly slimy flavor that infects what should be a lush Tuscan getaway.
In the film,...
It’s difficult to dispute Aubrey Plaza’s versatility. From embarking on a credit card-swiping crime spree in “Emily the Criminal” to just maybe being the new Lara Croft in a “Tomb Raider” reboot and even taking apart the very concept of acting in “Black Bear,” Plaza has gone out of her way to deconstruct any attempts at typecasting her.
So when “Spin Me Round,” the fourth collaboration with longtime creative partner and husband Jeff Baena, placed Plaza back in Italy after “The Little Hours” and upcoming Sicily-set Season 2 of “The White Lotus,” it was clear no one knew what to expect of her character. And boy, does Plaza keep us on our toes in the dark comedy that simultaneously subverts rom-com expectations and tells an all-to-true #MeToo story enhanced by a subtly slimy flavor that infects what should be a lush Tuscan getaway.
In the film,...
- 8/19/2022
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
Just when it seems every production under the sun seems to be jetting off to Italy, “Spin Me Round” writer-director Jeff Baena looked for another angle: to dismantle the fantasy facade of the romanticized nation, and then, well, spin it. Baena’s “Spin Me Round,” which he co-wrote with lead star and frequent collaborator Alison Brie is part coming-of-age story and part slap in the face of the “expectation versus reality” memes, all wrapped up in a #MeToo mystery.
In the film, which debuted at SXSW in March and is being released this week, Brie plays Amber, a manager at fast food restaurant Tuscan Grove, an Olive Garden insert, who wins a corporate retreat to Italy. While her fellow top-earning managers are also attending the company seminars, Amber only has eyes for franchise founder Nick Martucci (Alessandro Nivola).
Yet Nick’s assistant Kat (Aubrey Plaza) seems to be letting Amber...
In the film, which debuted at SXSW in March and is being released this week, Brie plays Amber, a manager at fast food restaurant Tuscan Grove, an Olive Garden insert, who wins a corporate retreat to Italy. While her fellow top-earning managers are also attending the company seminars, Amber only has eyes for franchise founder Nick Martucci (Alessandro Nivola).
Yet Nick’s assistant Kat (Aubrey Plaza) seems to be letting Amber...
- 8/18/2022
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
There are a number of reasons to recommend Spin Me Round, a winning comedy about the manager of an Olive Garden-style restaurant who gets chosen to attend a training program in Italy. The film features a shockingly stacked supporting cast of comedy titans: Aubrey Plaza, Tim Heidecker, Molly Shannon, Fred Armisen, Lil Rel Howery, The Office’s Zach Woods, Looking’s Lauren Weedman, and High Maintenance’s Ben Sinclair. The latest from director Jeff Baena, whose strange and wildly diverse filmography includes Life After Beth and The Little Hours, Spin Me Round stood out as one of the better comedies in a strong SXSW lineup earlier this year––even its Harlequin romance novel-aping poster is a gem.
However, the top reason to see Spin Me Round—it is not even close, really—is Alison Brie landing a starring role perfectly suited for her talents. The Glow star co-wrote the script with Baena,...
However, the top reason to see Spin Me Round—it is not even close, really—is Alison Brie landing a starring role perfectly suited for her talents. The Glow star co-wrote the script with Baena,...
- 8/15/2022
- by Christopher Schobert
- The Film Stage
All Amber wants is an “Under the Tuscan Sun” kind of love affair. What she gets, though, is a much darker twist on an Italian happily ever after.
Alison Brie stars as Amber, a manager at fast food restaurant Tuscan Grove (big Olive Garden energy) who wins a corporate retreat to Italy. While her fellow top-earning managers, played by Molly Shannon, Zach Woods, Tim Heidecker, and Debby Ryan, are also attending the company seminars, Amber only has eyes for franchise founder Nick Martucci (Alessandro Nivola). Yet Nick’s assistant Kat (Aubrey Plaza) seems to be letting Amber in on a secret about Nick…
“What she thought would be a romantic getaway devolves into chaos and catastrophe,” the official synopsis teases of Amber’s fate, as Nick’s friends constantly compliment her for being so “open-minded.” Just what, exactly, is going on?!
Lead star Brie co-wrote the dark comedy with director Jeff Baena,...
Alison Brie stars as Amber, a manager at fast food restaurant Tuscan Grove (big Olive Garden energy) who wins a corporate retreat to Italy. While her fellow top-earning managers, played by Molly Shannon, Zach Woods, Tim Heidecker, and Debby Ryan, are also attending the company seminars, Amber only has eyes for franchise founder Nick Martucci (Alessandro Nivola). Yet Nick’s assistant Kat (Aubrey Plaza) seems to be letting Amber in on a secret about Nick…
“What she thought would be a romantic getaway devolves into chaos and catastrophe,” the official synopsis teases of Amber’s fate, as Nick’s friends constantly compliment her for being so “open-minded.” Just what, exactly, is going on?!
Lead star Brie co-wrote the dark comedy with director Jeff Baena,...
- 7/12/2022
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
A frothy wish-fulfillment comedy that takes a few wildly unpredictable turns, “Spin Me Round” serves up an al dente satire of corporate retreat culture by following the manager of a popular pasta restaurant on an all-expenses-paid trip to Italy, where nothing goes as she expected. Amber (Alison Brie) imagines something along the lines of the company’s TV commercials, in which handsome Tuscan Grove founder Nick Martucci (Alessandro Nivola) serves pasta in the shade of the family villa — the ideal backdrop for a straightforward rom-com scenario. But this sly, if slightly undercooked movie has other plans, earning its title as it keeps us guessing.
Reteaming with “Horse Girl” director Jeff Baena, Brie co-wrote the script, conceiving her own character as a basic, ambitionless Audrey Hepburn type — all the better to misdirect audiences, who’ve been led to believe they’re in for a low-budget “Roman Holiday,” rather than the more...
Reteaming with “Horse Girl” director Jeff Baena, Brie co-wrote the script, conceiving her own character as a basic, ambitionless Audrey Hepburn type — all the better to misdirect audiences, who’ve been led to believe they’re in for a low-budget “Roman Holiday,” rather than the more...
- 3/24/2022
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
It’s a tale as old as time: a seemingly regular gal is unexpectedly swept away to an idyllic European locale, where she indulges in food, fun, and the affection of a tasty new companion, a delight for the senses that reinforces just how undesirable her current life is. When Amber (Alison Brie), the manager of a Bakersfield location of Tuscan Grove — essentially an Olive Garden knock-off, all forced familial cheer and industrial-sized bags of Alfredo sauce — gets picked for just such a trip in Jeff Baena’s off-kilter fish-out-of-water comedy “Spin Me Round,” what’s to come is expected. And
Spice is not something Amber is used to, and while she never says she’s bored with her life, she still jumps at the chance for an all-expenses-paid trip to her employer’s Italian-set “institute,” a treat for her near-decade-long service to the smash hit fast casual joint dreamed...
Spice is not something Amber is used to, and while she never says she’s bored with her life, she still jumps at the chance for an all-expenses-paid trip to her employer’s Italian-set “institute,” a treat for her near-decade-long service to the smash hit fast casual joint dreamed...
- 3/13/2022
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
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