“You’re Dating a Narcissist!” (2025) focuses on psychiatrist, author, professor and New Yorker Judy Kaplan (Marisa Tomei) who is alarmed when she finds out that her twenty-two-year-old daughter, Eva (Ciara Bravo), is engaged to twenty-nine-year-old Theo (Marco Pigossi), a guitar playing doctor, and they are getting married in a month. Judy and her best friend, Diane (Sherry Cola), fresh from a breakup, drop everything and travel cross country to rescue Eva, who does not want to be rescued. Is Judy right or projecting her issues and being an overprotective mother? Surrounding Judy with characters who are dismissive of Judy’s theories, the entire story leans heavily towards the latter while accruing evidence towards the prior, it all ends up about Judy needing to heal and trust guys again. Oy. I’m not the target audience and should have skipped it despite being into the cast.
Tomei is a gorgeous, terrific, talented actor, and she holds nothing back. She plays Judy in an exaggerated way as if she is crazed. She cannot stop talking about narcissism. Director and cowriter Ann Marie Allison and cowriter Jenna Milly actually get a lot right about narcissism and could be depicting the oversized tone of what it is like to be in a narcissistic relationship or witness it, but it makes for an aggravating viewing experience. Judy says a laundry list of caution and warning signs then a character swans in and waves it away with a one liner that can be summarized as follows: Judy has no love life, get over your failed marriage, stop being an asshole, look at an eligible bachelor that you should fall for immediately, and stop thinking because love. It is the rom com equivalent of watching an online debate between a person spouting facts then a Presidon’t supporter says, “Nuh uh.” Judy’s biggest flaw is to be “angry.” Rinse. Repeat. If the movie did not lean so heavily on making her seem like an overemotional madwoman, it could have succeeded at playing both sides, but most of the film has its thumb on the scale against her.
Judy’s relationships with women are fraught with conflict. Bravo is adorable and looks like the second coming of Alexis Bledel. If you played a drinking game, and you take a swig every time Eva told her mother to go home or did not want her to even meet Theo before the wedding, you would need to go to the hospital for alcohol poisoning. Then there are no consequences when Judy does not fly back to Manhattan. Allison and Milly skip the wedding and reception entirely. If there was a storyline about Eva’s issues with Judy, it would help. Even though at the beginning of “You’re Dating a Narcissist!,” she describes her mom as the best, there is an impression that Eva hates her mom. She even gives her dad, Edward Xavier III (Troy Garity), more of a place of honor than her mother. Did her mom badmouth dad in front of her, and she did not like it? What is her relationship with her dad? Filmmakers always forget that they need to show not tell and lay the foundation. Convince their audience that a relationship is positive and meaningful before risking it. Similarly, even though Sherry Cola is one of my favorite comedic actors, even she cannot quite pull off Diane, who mainly craps on Judy’s work, foils her plans when she is supportive and makes bad decision. Is Diane a best friend or an opp? It may be easy not to notice because costume designer Lou Schad gives the best outfits to her.
“You’re Dating a Narcissist!” could have still worked because the story takes beats reflecting that Eva and Diane are so resistant to Judy because they are worried that she could be right, and they do not want to be wrong about their romantic relationships. Diane is dating a married woman, Lauren (Abbey McBride)! There is a quick, perfect scene where Lauren has a meltdown while Diane is having a wakeup call. Even Eva has an intriguing storyline because when she is worried that Theo is cheating on her, she starts texting her ex-boyfriend, Tyler (Marcus Emanuel Mitchell). It would have been great for that element to be teased out more and balanced the plot with their flaws. They are cheaters! The film does a great job of creating the dynamic of people with issues prioritizing their problematic partner then expecting the reliable person in their corner to drop everything to console them when reality hits them in the face too hard to ignore. Maybe the fantasy is showing people believing evidence when they see i. It is probably asking too much to ask for a movie to challenge and depict an aspirational dynamic where they apologize for being so mean to someone who is allegedly important to them, but the movie does get some things right.
Is “You’re Dating a Narcissist!” a commercial for the hotel that they stayed at if it is real? A lot of the dialogue between Judy and Diane is devoted to how great Diane’s room is, and the fresco dining scenes will make you want to go there. It also does not hurt that Judy’s most healthy relationship is with the hotel owner, Daniel (José María Yazpik). Allison and Milly cooked with this storyline. Daniel is in a similar stage of life as Judy, gives good advice, is validating and seems to genuinely enjoy spending time with her unlike the people who are supposed to know and love her. It is interesting that women make a film, but the only unproblematic relationship is a romantic one whereas the friendship and familial ones could be tossed, and Judy’s life would improve immediately.
“You’re Dating a Narcissist!” tries to experiment with the narrative structure with a framing story of Judy recording a message on her laptop in the hotel room then showing what led up to her screaming like a banshee. Normally starting a movie in the middle of the action drains any suspense from the story, but the title already sets up the problem, so it does not hurt the momentum. Then there is a M. Night Shyamalan twist regarding the message that somewhat works but is not such a big payoff that it makes it worth all the trouble. It does offer a nice segue to Judy’s next career move: podcasting. This point is more of a bow on a gift than anything that was alluded to earlier as one of Judy’s goals finally achieved so the benefit is negligible. It is more indicative of a trend where movies and episodic television shows have a character give a speech to end the story instead of organically creating a satisfying one. Judy returns to stasis.
If most of the above are not dealbreakers, and you love the cast, “You’re Dating a Narcissist!” will be a great way to spend time with actors who usually have supporting roles and do not get as much screentime as they do here. Consider yourself warned that a film with three go-getter women who allegedly love each other is mostly about them crapping on Judy. While it depicts the reality that people spend time with people that they appear to hate, it would be nice to get more films like “The Spy Who Dumped Me” (2018) where the conflict is external, not coming from inside the house.
