The Incredible Jessica James


The Incredible Jessica James is a 2017 American romantic comedy film written and directed by James C. Strouse. The film stars Jessica Williams, Chris O'Dowd, Noël Wells, Lakeith Stanfield, Megan Ketch and Zabryna Guevara. The film was released on Netflix on July 28, 2017.

Plot

The film opens with Jessica on a date with a guy from Tinder where she details her recent split with her boyfriend Damon. Jessica is a fiercely independent woman who works with children as part of a theatre project.
Jessica's best friend Tasha sets Jessica up on a blind date with Boone. The date gets off to a bad start when Jessica explains her recent split while Boone tells her of his recent divorce. The two hit it off unintentionally and wind up spending a night together.
The film then drifts to Jessica's job at a children's theatre workshop. All through this Jessica keeps dreaming about Damon in random situations. Jessica and Boone then agree to go for a walk, during which they admit that they obsessively follow their respective exes' social media accounts. They agree to unfollow their own exes and follow each other's instead, as a way of keeping tabs but from a distance.
From here they go on a number of dates and Jessica starts to fall for Boone. Sadly this all gets muddled when Jessica visits Boone unexpectedly and finds him in a compromised position with his ex-wife. Boone tries to explain it but Jessica leaves hurt.
Jessica then focuses on her children's theatre workshop and the film ends with Boone reuniting with Jessica just as she gets an offer to teach children and stage one of her plays in London. He offers to accompany her using his sky miles. Instead the final scene cuts to Jessica on a flight to London with Tasha and Shandra, who tease her about her boyfriend giving her free flights.

Cast

The film premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival on January 27, 2017. On January 23, 2017, Netflix acquired distribution rights to the film. The film was released on Netflix on July 28, 2017.

Reception

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 88%, based on 58 reviews, and an average rating of 7.1/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "The Incredible Jessica James makes its standard storyline feel new, almost purely on the strength of a captivating, potentially star-making performance from Jessica Williams." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 72 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".