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I’ll admit this upfront: I pressed play on French Girl, the new romantic comedy starring Zach Braff and Évelyne Brochu, preemptively annoyed and expecting to hate it. I wasn’t wrong.

The film follows Gordon (Braff), a middle-school English teacher living in Brooklyn. Gordon’s girlfriend, Sophie (Brochu), is a lovely and accomplished Québécois chef. When Sophie gets the opportunity to audition for a job at a renowned restaurant in Quebec City, Gordon tags along. The problem? Sophie’s new boss is also her ex, Ruby (Vanessa Hudgens), a beautiful and world-renowned chef and TV personality. After Gordon discovers this piece of information, he spends the rest of the film acting increasingly unhinged until he nearly destroys his relationship with Sophie.

Rom-com characters don’t tend to act like normal people, so Gordon’s deranged behavior isn’t outside of the norms of the genre. Sometimes, this zany behavior works. There’s an entire sub-genre of rom-coms that can be described as “insane woman with great hair” (When Harry Met Sally, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Crossing Delancey). The problem with French Girl is that Zach Braff is not an insane woman with great hair – he’s just Zach Braff. 

Braff’s character is a 49-year-old man who can’t figure out how to properly poach an egg and accidentally gets cross-faded on the plane on the way to meet his girlfriend’s parents. The movie begins with Gordon making Sophie an awful-looking plate of eggs benedict for breakfast and her telling him “It’s perfect.” Maybe this is supposed to be some sort of sad representation of the rhythms of a heterosexual relationship, but it mostly just sets Gordon up as a loser who thinks hollandaise is the same as mayo. 

The real problem here is that Braff is too old to play this kind of character. His man-child shtick isn’t cute anymore, though the film tries to blame his stuntedness on the death of his mother. Still, Sophie, who wears flowy summer dresses, floats around the farmer’s market like an organic Instagram model, and is basically perfect, looks at Gordon lovingly every time he says something stupid or embarrassing. What’s laughable – and not in a good way – is that we’re supposed to root for Gordon to get the girl, who of course, he already has. 

Most of the film’s conflict hinges on Ruby, Sophie’s charming and successful ex-girlfriend. The first issue is that Sophie doesn’t initially tell Gordon that Ruby is her ex. Presumably, he doesn’t suspect a romantic past between them because Ruby’s a woman, but that’s never explained. Sophie is afraid to tell Gordon the truth, though again, her reasons for that omission are unclear. Gordon eventually finds out because he happens on a Polaroid of the two of them in bed together with “Orgasm Queens” written on it in Sharpie. (As if she wasn’t already a perfect heroine, Sophie is also sex-crazed, apparently.)

This plot all feels very haphazardly put together, for a number of reasons. Neither Gordon nor Sophie ever address the fact that Ruby is a woman. One might assume this is because Gordon is open-minded and already knew Sophie was bisexual, but that begs the question – why did Sophie never tell Gordon about her relationship with Ruby, which was clearly a significant part of her life? Of course, no one in the film ever utters the words bisexual or queer, because gender doesn’t matter, right? And see, Gordon is progressive, he’s not threatened by Ruby because she’s a woman, he’s threatened by her because she’s more sophisticated and accomplished than him. But there’s also a recurring joke in the film that Gordon acts kind of gay, or at least a little effeminate. (One of his students assumes he’s engaged to a man, and he loves figure skating.) This very 2000s gag clashes with the film’s assurance that bisexuality is no big deal, though perhaps we’re meant to recognize that pussies (as Gordon’s dad calls him) deserve love too. 

Bisexuality is notoriously difficult to depict or discuss with any nuance in mainstream films, probably because Hollywood filmmakers tend to see things in black and white. Think back to the 1990s, when films like Kissing Jessica Stein and Chasing Amy kind of depicted bisexuality, or maybe it was a lesbian who fell in love with a man, or a straight woman dabbling in lesbianism? Either way, the concept of bisexuality itself was never really explored. One of the only pieces of media to take bisexuality seriously as its own distinct experience is Desiree Akhavan's brilliant series The Bisexual. Brochu herself is no stranger to portraying a bisexual, having played gorgeous scientist Delphine Cormier in Orphan Black, much to the delight of sapphic fans everywhere. (Delphine’s bisexual monologue, if you will, is a series highlight.) 

In French Girl, bisexuality is a non-issue, though it hovers on the periphery of many of Gordon and Sophie’s conversations. Near the end of the film, Gordon gets drunk and makes an embarrassing and offensive speech where he insinuates Sophie only got the job because Ruby wants to get in her pants. Later, he wonders out loud if Sophie is willing to “sleep [her] way to a Michelin star.” Sophie’s sister encourages Sophie to forgive Gordon because he said what he said out of love. 

Évelyne Brochu fans (read: gay people) had the movie clocked from the beginning. When Brochu posted the trailer on Instagram, her followers flooded the comments section with responses like “I’m rooting for the girl.” Ruby occupies the role of the villain, and in practice, it’s harder to root for her than the trailer suggests. She’s cunning, manipulative, and kind of evil, though she rocks a dark red lip. To give credit where credit’s due, Hudgens does deliver one of the only funny moments in the film, when Ruby starts belting out an impromptu song at Sophie’s grandmother’s funeral. (“She’s better than Celine,” Sophie’s brother whispers.) She doesn’t have much chemistry with Sophie, because she doesn’t seem to have a heart. But while Ruby in no way acts like a real person, she’s still more fun to root for than Gordon, who lumbers around like a sad sack of potatoes. 

Should we be cheering for Sophie, a beautiful bisexual who settles down with a middle-aged man who owns pantaloons? Or for Gordon, who wifes up a woman way out of his league? Maybe we’re on the side of Ruby, who spends the entire movie ingratiating herself back into Sophie’s life only to get punched in the nose. You certainly can’t ask us to cheer for the cops that save the day. The outcome doesn’t satisfy either way, but this comes as no surprise. 2004 called, and it wants its leading man back. But please, let us keep Évelyne Brochu.