Nobody Wants This Review: Kristen Bell and Adam Brody Are a Perfect Pair in Netflix’s Mismatched Love Story

Kristen Bell and Adam Brody are so beloved from their earlier TV roles — she was Veronica Mars ; he was The O.C.’ s Seth Cohen — that they could team up in a thoroughly mediocre series and we’d probably still watch it just to see them on screen together. But thankfully, their new romantic comedy Nobody Wants This (now streaming on Netflix; I’ve seen the first four episodes) is very worthy of their combined talents, putting a thoughtful and modern spin on the rom-com genre and letting its two stars shine more brightly than they have in years.

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Bell plays Joanne, who hosts a sex and relationship podcast with her sister and has a dumpster fire of a dating life, stuck in a rut of self-destructive patterns. Brody’s Noah, meanwhile, is an honest-to-Jehovah rabbi who just split up with a clingy girlfriend and is facing heavy pressure from his parents to start a family already. Joanne and Noah meet at a dinner party and strike up a light flirtation that turns into something more — but they soon learn that just about everyone in their lives doesn’t think they belong together. In fact, they’re not so sure they belong together, either.

With a pilot written by Erin Foster (who created VH1’s Barely Famous with her actress sister Sara) and directed by comedy vet Greg Mottola, Nobody Wants This is a sunny slice of L.A. life, with caustically funny dialogue and a pulsing indie-rock soundtrack. The show’s take on L.A. superficiality is a tad cynical at times (Joanne’s mom is seeing a “sound therapist” to analyze her speaking voice), and the Jewish stereotypes are laid on a little thick. (Tovah Feldshuh plays Noah’s overbearing mother, because of course she does.) But while the character dynamics are packed with quirky dysfunction, when it focuses on Joanne and Noah’s burgeoning relationship, the tone turns earnestly romantic.

Bell and Brody have such terrific chemistry right away that it’s surprising we haven’t seen them paired up on screen more often. Bell’s Joanne is unabashedly flawed in a way that’s reminiscent of The Good Place’ s Eleanor, and the character of Noah taps into Brody’s natural charms better than any role since the days of Seth Cohen. One nagging complaint I do have is that both Bell and Brody seem a shade too old for their roles — the conflicts Joanne and Noah face are more suited to someone in their mid-30s, rather than their mid-40s — but I’m willing to overlook it because they make such an appealing pair.

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They’re bolstered by two HBO alums in the cast, with Succession’ s Justine Lupe and Veep’ s Timothy Simons hilariously bickering as Joanne’s sister Morgan and Noah’s brother Sasha, respectively. There are fun cameos here, too, like Bell’s Veronica Mars co-star Ryan Hansen popping up as a sleazy ex of Joanne’s. But the heart of the show is the unlikely romance between a sex podcaster and a rabbi, which is very Fleabag Season 2 with its questions of love versus faith. (“Can you have sex?” Joanne asks him. He can. “Are you even a little bit Jewish?” Noah asks her. She’s not.) It’s a joy to watch Bell and Brody bounce off each other like this, each at the top of their game. And it’s a shot in the arm for romantic comedies in general: Between this and Paramount+’s delightful Colin From Accounts , it looks like there’s hope for the genre after all.

THE TVLINE BOTTOM LINE: Netflix’s caustically funny romantic comedy Nobody Wants This is a charming showcase for Kristen Bell and Adam Brody.

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