Overboard (2018)

IMDb plot summary: After a spoiled, wealthy yacht owner is thrown overboard and loses his memory, a mistreated employee convinces him that he is her working-class husband.

Directed by Rob Greenberg. Stars Eugenio Derbez, Anna Faris, Eva Longoria.

Overboard is a gender-swapped remake of the 1980s film in which a spoiled rich person falls off their yacht, losing their memory, and is tricked by a former employee into thinking the two were married. In the original, it was a man lying to a spoiled woman, and in this version, it’s a woman lying to a spoiled man. I’m not sure the gender swap actually makes the awfulness of the romance any better, though. It’s such a manipulative story, and I know I have to have some suspension of disbelief, but nothing is going to make me root for Anna Faris as the main character when this is the path she takes, even if out of desperation. What does make this film palatable is how charismatic Eugenio Derbez is as the perpetually confused amnesiac trying to figure out how to be a good human again. He manages to sell the character, and it’s worth it watching him work to make connections with the people around him. Unfortunately, in a rom com, you really need to buy into both your leads, and Faris just never comes across as sympathetic enough for us to want her to succeed here. A messy movie that attempts to update the original and doesn’t quite stick the landing.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Overboard (2018)

📊 Ranked #1584/4049 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 62

lost to Away We Go (#2021 → #1958)

beat Late Night with the Devil (#3033 → #3032)

beat Cold Mountain (#2527 → #3325)

beat Once Upon a Time in the West (#2275 → #2282)

beat Metropolis (#2148 → #2152)

lost to The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (#2085 → #1426)

lost to The Baby-Sitters Club (#2116 → #2028)

beat Arthur Christmas (#2132 → #2214)

lost to Sinbad of the Seven Seas (#2124 → #1893)

beat Pat and Mike (#2128 → #2129)

beat National Theatre Live: The Seagull (#2126 → #2128)

beat Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (#2125 → #2131)