Apple TV’s ‘Ghosted’ Leaves a Lot to Be Desired

Romantic comedies have been inching their way back into our hearts after appearing to be on somewhat of a hiatus. Enter Apple TV+’s latest offering Ghosted, which considering its co-leads should’ve been a slam dunk and welcomed addition to the genre. Unfortunately, despite a few enjoyable moments and exciting cameos, the film just met the “okay” level. 

The meeting between Sadie (Ana de Armas; Blonde) and Cole (Chris Evans; The Gray Man) at a local market isn’t the typical meet-cute, but it’s still a significant moment. While covering for a friend’s stall, Cole engages in a back-and-forth with Sadie about the attention required for plants when she tries to purchase a bouquet of begonias. Convinced that she lacks the necessary green thumb, Cole offers her a cactus that requires minimal care and will survive even under negligence.

Although their interaction wasn’t smooth, Cole’s friend helped him to realize that the bickering between him and Sadie was a sign of chemistry, leading him to chase after her. After they spend an incredible day and night together, Cole never hears from Sadie again.

Cole spends the next few days messaging Sadie persistently. Even after receiving no response, he continues to send emojis and sweet nothings. He realizes he left her inhaler in his bag and tracks her location because he has trackers on all his belongings, so he’ll never lose them —totally normal. He discovers that she’s in London, and with the encouragement of his parents —an underutilized Amy Sedaris and Tate Donovan— he flies to London to find her. 

The last thing Cole expected was to be ambushed by a group of men who think he’s the “Taxman” and holds a passcode for a weapon that would inviscerate the Eastern U.S. seaboard. Shortly after he’s kidnapped, he realizes that Sadie isn’t the art curator he thought she was but a CIA agent. The rest of the film is spent with the two working together to fix this mix-up and, ultimately, falling in love. 

Romantic comedies can be simple and usually very simple in nature. However, with the injection of action, the story gets a bit more muddled. Furthermore, Cole’s juvenile response to allegedly being ghosted is a bit far-fetched for a character over 40. And speaking of ghosting, can it really be called ghosting when the two barely communicated outside their one evening?

And can we talk about being ghosted for a moment? Is it really ghosting if you’ve never really had a relationship? Usually, ghosting implies someone cutting off communication from nowhere, but Cole and Sadie barely communicated outside of their one evening.

The family didn’t seem to serve much purpose other than to painfully obviously set up the kind of person Cole is — an obsessive hopeless romantic that falls too hard too fast for potential partners, which is apparently what happened between him and his last romantic interest. 

I wish the screenplay would’ve dived into relation aspects a little more. Sadie was looking for something low maintenance, a cactus, and Cole had a history of being needy or needing attention like a begonia. The film gently set these premises up but ultimately abandoned them, similar to how Cole abandoned the need for his inhaler throughout the film. 

But, when in doubt, cameo it out, which was probably the best thing Ghosted had to offer. Fun faces popping in and out when you least expect them pulls your attention back into the story right when you’d probably reach for your won find to scroll through your text messages out of lack of interest. 

Underneath the lackluster material, Evan’s charm shines through. He isn’t new to the genre and has really great comedic timing. Although Evans and de Armas’ chemistry resembled that of a candle that had fallen into a lake, it was an easygoing at-home watch. In conclusion, Ghosted may not be Apple TV+’s best, but it’s certainly not their worst. As the film suggests, “The trips you plan the least can sometimes give you the most,” and the same can be said for this movie.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars