Can a man and a woman be friends without their relationship becoming sexual? The question is asked in the first few minutes of “Platonic,” the 10-hour Apple TV+ comedy about estranged college friends, Will (Seth Rogen) and Sylvia (Rose Byrne), who reunite at a dangerous time in their lives. life. He is going through a divorce. She questions her marriage and her role as a mother of three. Both are approaching a midlife crisis.

When Will tells his buddies that Sylvia is back in business, the men argue about the implausibility of a platonic friendship between a man and a woman, and soon the conversation turns to the 1989 film When Harry Met Sally. They claim the movie is further proof that it’s impossible to leave things unsexy, especially if she’s sexy. And in the tradition of every other buddy novel, starting with Meg Ryan’s orgasmic screams in that deli, Mines laughs in suspense of “will they or won’t they” – just this time, aging millennials are at the center of the story. .

Bringing attention to the 1989 film that echoes the series doesn’t stop Platonist from feeling like a throwback, rather than in a pleasant, nostalgic way. While it openly plays with the clichés and clichés of 20th-century romantic comedies — wives lamenting the boring task of sex with their husbands, married men looking hopelessly out of place in trendy bars, stocky dudes lashing out at impossibly hot women — the show doesn’t. It is enough to revise the formula.

From co-creators Nick Stoller and Francesca Delbanco, this series is set in present-day Los Angeles, where Will works as a brewer at a popular downtown bar he owns with his friend Andy (Tre Hale) and his ex-wife’s beer. half brother of Reggie (Andrew Lopez). He’s kind of a child-man, dyed hair and all. She’s given up her legal career to raise three kids and settle for her super straight-forward husband Charlie (Luke MacFarlane), but once she’s reunited with Will, he forces her to see what a normal she’s become. She reminds him that he’s acting out of his age, and she’s right. Blond hair and clogs with socks make him look like a “90s grunge clown”. And the two old friends continue to rekindle their collective self-destructive tendencies both in and out of their relationship.

Platonist is Byrne and Rogen’s first TV collaboration (they’re also executive producers) and their first collaboration since they starred in Neighbours. The chemistry between these stars is the only reason to watch this show. They communicate almost telepathically, completing each other’s sentences. Platonist will likely resonate with fans of Byrne and Rogen, who will probably want to overlook the series’ other pitfalls.

There is an improvisational quality to their scenes together as Will and Sylvia, and there is some true fun in the way they portray their all-consuming relationship. They make each other laugh and piss each other off, strengthening their bond and pushing away those around them, including their friends and partners.

Aside from the attraction of its main stars, Platonist is a mediocre comedy with a lot of the same jokes you’ve seen before. Rogan plays the annoying brat, proving his superiority by pushing e-scooters and donning goofy hats. Byrne’s character struggles with a family movie night when no one wants to watch the same thing and overcrowded household toilets. Much more could have been done to take this comedy from mildly charming to poignant, but as it stands, it’s a trip down memory lane with Harry and Sally, just 40 years later, and the jokes are outdated.

London Prince Harry has lost a bid to take legal action against the UK government over his refusal to allow him to privately pay for personal police protection for himself and his family when estranged members of the royal family visit the UK.

Harry and his wife Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex, abandoned their roles as senior “working” members of the royal family in 2020, shortly after which they settled in California. That same year, the Protection of Royals and Public Figures Executive Committee (RAVEC), made up of government officials, the London Metropolitan Police Service and the Royal Family, decided that the Sussexes were no longer eligible for special police protection in the UK.

Harry argued through his lawyers in the UK High Court that a formal judicial review process should evaluate the government’s decision to reject his offer to reinstate the personal protection order at his expense.

“RAVEC has exceeded its authority, its authority, because it does not have the authority to make this decision in the first place,” Harry’s lawyers said in court, according to the CBS News partner network BBC News.

V written decision However, on Tuesday, High Court Judge Martin Chamberlain denied Harry permission to seek judicial review of the RAVEC decision, describing the committee’s actions as “narrowly limited to the security services that fall within its purview.”

Harry’s legal team argued in court that there are provisions in UK law to allow private payment for “special policing services” and therefore “payment for policing is not contrary to the public interest or public confidence in the Metropolitan Police Service”. “According to the BBC.

In his ruling, Chamberlain also dismissed this argument, stating that the security services Harry was looking for “are different in nature from police services provided (for example) at sporting or recreational events because they involve the use of highly trained specialist officers, of whom a limited number, and they must put themselves in danger to protect their leaders.”

“RAVEC’s reasoning was that there are political reasons why these services should not be provided for a fee, even if others are. I don’t see anything supposedly irrational in this reasoning,” Chamberlain wrote.

While the Duke of Sussex has lost his bid to legally challenge RAVEC’s decision on whether he can personally pay for police protection, a separate ongoing court case remains over whether the prince should restore his national security. Prince Harry has received permission from the courts to hear the case and it is expected to go to trial, but the timing remains unclear.

His personal protection cases when he visits the UK are just two of the legal disputes currently being handled by Prince Harry.

The Duke is also part of a small celebrity group. accusation of illegal collection of information British tabloids. Since 2019, Harry and Meghan have filed at least seven lawsuits against American and British media outlets, according to British Sky News.