Spin Me Round is a 2022 romantic comedy film directed and co-written by Jeff Baena, who also co-wrote the screenplay with its star Alison Brie. The supporting cast includes Alessandro Nivola, Molly Shannon, Tim Heidecker, Fred Armisen, Debby Ryan, Lil Rel Howery, Aubrey Plaza, and Ego Nwodim.
Amber (Brie), a manager for an Italian restaurant chain in California, wins a trip to Italy as part of a company work retreat. Lonely and dissatisfied, she hopes to find love in Italy but gets much more than she bargained for.
Tropes in this film:
- Affectionate Nickname: Nick refers to Amber as "Baby Turtle" because he says she's afraid to come out of her shell. Amber is never comfortable with it and eventually calls Nick out on it being insulting.
- Bait-and-Switch: In the third act, it's teased that Deb is a murderer, but it turns out to be a series of misunderstandings.
- Black Best Friend: Amber's best (and possibly only) friend Emily is black. She does not come on the trip and calls in for a video chat a few times.
- Bland-Name Product: Tuscan Grove is obviously inspired by the worst things said about Olive Garden. Nick laments that his high-class dreams turned into a bargain-basement chain. The opening credits show the pasta being made via assembly line. In the kitchen, we see that the dishes are made by squirting pre-made sauce onto bare noodles and then microwaving them.
- Brick Joke:
- In the first act, Craig warns everyone that Italy is dangerous because of the wild boars. In the third act, Dana is gored by boars, which then crash into an orgy.
- In act one, Jen mentions that her twin sister died in the womb. In the third act, when Nick tearfully relates how his sister died in his arms, Jen pipes up that hers did too.
- Deb's lost suitcase finally gets returned at the end of the trip.
- Bring My Brown Pants: Dana is found motionless with a sizable urine stain on his pants, indicating that he was murdered. Then it turns out he was just unconscious, with the urine going unexplained.
- The Casanova: Deconstructed. Nick Martucci successfully seduces Amber with his good looks and extravagant wealth, but Amber was in a romantic mood to begin with and only gave in for the thrill of it. After figuring Nick out and getting back to work, Amber effortlessly shrugs off all of Nick's charms.
- Foreshadowing:
- Craig seems to be really interested in filming everyone, even women throwing trash away, and he holds his camera on Amber for an uncomfortably long period of time. It turns out he's the cameraman for the orgies.
- Amber learns that one particular part of Italy is known for pornography where everyone wears masks. While at Ricky's party, everyone keeps asking Amber if she's into "new experiences," and she finds a drawer full of masks. In the third act, Amber stumbles into Ricky's masked orgy.
- Nick greets all the pretty young guests with kisses on the cheeks, but is more professional with the mature-aged Deb and barely acknowledges the men in the room.
- Gaslighting: Amber accuses Nick of trying to gaslight her when he's caught red-handed.
- Gender-Blender Name: Fran and Dana, which becomes a plot point when Dana realizes that he and Fran are the only men to ever be invited to the company retreat, so whoever selected the names must have assumed they were women.
- Grievous Bottley Harm: Kat breaks a wine bottle and threatens a local sleazebag with it.
- Manchild: Kat accuses Nick of being a baby. He bawls like a baby in the third act.
- Reality Has No Subtitles: None of the Italian spoken in the film is subtitled, emphasizing Amber's ignorance of it.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Amber gives one to Nick in the end.
- Red Herring: Kat's interest in Amber sidetracks her for a while into thinking that she's been gaslighting her rather than Nick.
- Rejection Affection: In the end, Nick attempts to woo Amber back, but she rejects him. He can't believe it, and she repeatedly tells him to go away until she screams and sprays alfredo sauce at him.
- The Reveal: It turns out that Nick uses these company retreats as his personal dating service and discards his lovers after they leave.
- Romance Cover Scene: The film's poster is a riff on romance novels.
- Running Gag: Once Deb buys her own clothes, she appears in outrageously extravagant outfits in every scene.
- Serious Business: Deb is utterly devastated that her luggage got lost at the airport and moans about it nonstop until Amber offers to share her clothing.
- Shout-Out:
- Craig screens Life Is Beautiful for the group, apparently thinking that it's a fun showcase of Italy. The next day, he apologizes for not vetting the film beforehand, since it's actually set in a Nazi concentration camp.
- Kat talks about reading Gabriel García Márquez's News Of A Kidnapping, which goes right over Amber's head.
- Sleeps with Both Eyes Open: In the third act, it seems that Jen Dies Wide Open, but it later turns out that she's sleeping with her eyes open. On the ride back to the airport, she again falls asleep with her eyes open and mouth gaping as if she's dead.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Fran assumes that everyone already knows who he is because he appeared in an episode of a cooking show. Later he tries to seize control of Liz Bence's presentation.
- Sweeps Week Lesbian Kiss: Functions like one, even though this isn't a TV show. At one point Amber and Kat make out in an alleyway and Amber even puts her hand under Kat's dress—but chickens out a second later and it's never mentioned again.
- Take That!: After Kat talks about reading the heady novel News Of A Kidnapping, Amber claims not to be reading anything, apparently too ashamed to admit she's reading Eat, Pray, Love. Kat later calls her out for lying about it and dismissively tosses the book to the ground.
- The Thing That Would Not Leave:
- Amber allows Deb to raid her closet for emergency clothing, but when Amber takes a call from her friend and politely signals that Deb should leave so she can talk, Deb doesn't get the message and keeps lingering obliviously. It takes a few more tries before Deb finally realizes she should go.
- Nick Martucci spends his final scene trying to woo Amber with a series of cliches, all of which are so stupid that Amber eventually screams at him to get the fuck out.
- Thinks Like a Romance Novel: Amber entertains the thought, but is mostly just letting herself get swept up in the glamour of Italy and the attention of a suave rich man. Played straight with Nick, who is so used to casual hookups that he's completely unprepared when it comes to forming a genuine relationship.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Kat disappears from the story after Amber rejects her affections.
