I should have known that just because a film features a getaway driver as its lead character does not mean it will be the next “Baby Driver.”
Case in point: Hulu’s latest film “Eenie Meanie,” which I was initially drawn to because of the similarities popular film reviewers drew between it and the 2017 movie. I loved the action film starring Ansel Elgort as the titular character, Baby, when it first came out and was excited to see a premise I really enjoyed but with a more female-focused twist. But while “Baby Driver” intertwines high-speed scenes with music to create an intriguing story, I was disappointed to see that not as much care was put into crafting the plot of “Eenie Meanie.”
The movie centers around Edie Meaney (Samara Weaving), a former getaway driver determined to leave her criminal background behind and turn her life around. But when her ex-boyfriend, John (Karl Glusman), finds himself in $3 million of debt to local kingpin Nico (Andy Garcia), Edie finds herself dragged back to help bail him out.
In a brief discussion at the start of the film between Edie and her friend Baby Girl (Kyanna Simone), they recount Edie’s troubling past. We learn how she bounced around foster homes as a kid before being drawn into the criminal life and, after breaking up with her boyfriend John, Edie is determined to get everything on track. But after she is sent to the hospital for injuries sustained from trying to stop a bank robbery taking place at her job, Edie learns she’s pregnant with John’s baby and is tossed back into his life once again.
The pregnancy trope really annoyed me in this movie. While it is the catalyst for the events that follow, for most of the movie it is so unimportant that I fully forgot she was pregnant. She gets shot at and is in multiple car crashes with seemingly no mention of or care for her pregnancy. She doesn’t even tell John until the film is practically over. Even then, the short burst of excitement is quickly cut off by the fact they are about to face the dangerous feat of robbing a casino. And then, when we see her new life at the end of the movie, her child pops out from behind a corner, almost as if his existence was supposed to be a surprise the whole time.
The saddest part of this plotline is that Edie being pregnant during the film could have added such an interesting layer to her character. There are so many moments when Edie makes life harder on herself in order to help protect someone else. Seeing her grapple with the danger she regularly puts herself in with the fact he’s pregnant with someone’s child could have made for such a heartfelt and intriguing plotline.
But it wasn’t the failure to appropriately respond to her pregnancy that ruined this movie. Or the fact that there are only two female leads, one of which is on screen for such a short period of time I am hesitant to say she counts. It was John and the disappointing reality that for a movie seemingly centered around a female lead, “Eenie Meanie” is not the feminist film that it seems.
It should have been obvious that John was going to be an issue for me when his first moments on screen were centered around Edie saving him from gunfire as he ran for his life completely naked. And even after that extremely embarrassing, near-death moment, which was followed by Edie using her expertise to drive them to safety, John can’t so much as offer up a “thank you,” much less fully explain what mess Edie’s been brought into.
John’s character throughout this movie can easily be described as cowardice because he continuously acts before he thinks, which then gets him into trouble, which he then convinces Edie to help him get out of under the guise of love. It’s not even something he’s doing maliciously. It never appears as if he wants to hurt Edie with his actions; in some way, it truly seems like he does every thoughtless action out of love, but he’s just dumb. He doesn’t think, he doesn’t take responsibility for his actions and Edie lets him get away with it. For as much as I couldn’t stand John, I can’t fully blame him either because most of this movie is just Edie letting him get his way.
Multiple times, Nico mentions how Edie is “always cleaning up everybody’s messes.” While it comes across as light teasing, it’s actually infuriatingly true. Edie has so many chances to walk away from this mess before she’s in too deep but repeatedly decides to dig herself in a deeper hole. And we’re expected to believe she’d do this all for a man she has seemingly no chemistry with and consistently says she doesn’t want anything to do with? It makes no sense.
Despite my excitement going in, “Eenie Meanie” was an unfortunate waste of my time. Even the parts I liked, such as the dynamic between Nico and his right-hand George (Mike O'Malley), which sadly got little screen time, weren’t worth the other hour of mindless content you had to sit through. If you want to save your time, and your sanity, I would avoid “Eenie Meanie” altogether.
