One of those things I guess I just don’t “get” as an adult is how often I am supposed to change my bed’s mattress.

Society would lead me to believe it is more often than I think it is, because how else would you explain how there are mattress stores, like, EVERYWHERE. Given that I assume my bed’s mattress is going to last until I die, how does every single town support one or more mattress shops? Who is buying that many mattresses? Someone, I guess. Someone who knows these things is only supposed to last, like, seven years (thank you, web search!).

Shoot, how old is my mattress? Have I had it for seven years? I have no earthly idea, but I DO remember buying it since my wife and I moved in together. So it’s somewhere less than fifteen years old.

Seriously, How Old is My Mattress?

Anyway, the new streaming option on Hulu, California King, does not address this topic at all, but it is about a young man named Perry who is the manager of his town’s mattress depot. That town is Nice, California, by the way… pronounced like the word, not like the French city. 

Perry and his slacker buddy Wyatt both work at the store, and Perry has an unrequited crush on a fellow local, Lynette. They went to school together, and he has pined for her ever since. So imagine his shock and dismay when she comes in one day and reports she is moving to San Diego!

Perry gets desperate to find a way to keep her in Nice, and he figures he needs a grand gesture to do so. And that’s when he lets Wyatt talk him into an absurd plan (the kind you only see in movies): they could kidnap Lynette’s younger brother, then Perry could “save” him to gain favor with her!

The two begin drawing up their plans to win Lynette, but what they don’t know is they aren’t the only ones in Nice with nefarious schemes in play…

TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS

The third act lifts the movie after a fairly “blah” first two. There are some fun twists, and the film has the bravery not to have the happy ending you think is coming. I was genuinely really down on this picture for a while–more on that in a bit–but when you get to the climactic act, everything gets a lot better.

Obviously dealing with twists and the ending, I don’t want to spoil anything, so I’m keeping myself vague here. But I was surprised by some aspects I really never saw coming. So if you aren’t vibing with California King but can hang in there, go ahead and do so. I feel like you will be rewarded for your patience. 

 Travis Bennett and Joel McHale, in particular, do a good job in their roles. The rest of the cast certainly has their peaks and valleys, but McHale and Bennett are the constants that keep everything somewhat steady. They hit their lines and deliver everything as strongly as you could hope.

This was my first real experience with Bennett, and it’s great to see a young talent like his stand out. I’ll be keeping an eye out for what he does in the future. McHale is obviously much more of a known quantity from stuff like The Soup and Community. You know he gets his assignment every time and will consistently turn in strong performances, and he does so again in California King.

For a comedy, it’s not amazingly funny. I might have chuckled once or twice, but that is it. This one is certainly trying, but what it finds funny, I do not. And this Down essentially ties into my second one, so let’s cut to…

Conflicting Acts

The first two acts aren’t that impressive, and I could easily see folks giving up on this one before it gets good. The establishment of Perry and Wyatt and their dynamic is kind of tedious. It’s one of those weird tropes you see in fiction where you will never understand why these two people are friends when one is constantly dragging the other down and is much less useful of a human being. We also see Perry’s crush on Lynette, but the film does not establish much more than that they danced one time in school. That’s the entire basis for Perry’s feelings for her, and it rings empty.

There are aspects from the establishing acts that do pay off in the third, but a lot of the best stuff from the third act comes out of nowhere. So I’m not even sure how necessary the first fifty minutes of this movie are. Even the newly transferred police lieutenant, Leila, is more or less pointless when it’s all said and done. She is used throughout the movie, but when you get to the payoffs, the regular cops of Nice would have worked just fine.

And yeah, the worst part of it all is that while the first two acts are dragging by, they are mostly trying and failing to be funny. That’s a problem for a supposed comedy! If this movie’s weak story doesn’t grab you, it would be easy to bail because the jokes aren’t landing, either. Which is a shame because, as I noted in the Ups, this flick does pick up late. 

OVERALL: 2.5 Out Of 5

I may have sounded particularly harsh in the Downs, but you know what I will forgive a lot of times? A movie that gets better as it goes. And California King’s strongest aspect is its finish, so I’m mostly left feeling pretty contented with how this outing wrapped up. That said, the ride there isn’t the best one. So the best I can do is an average score.