Peri(menopausal) in Pink
Middle-aged Andie Walsh lives in a Chicago suburb with her underemployed and estranged husband, Mike, whom she can’t afford to divorce, because they both stupidly pursued creative careers instead of going into finance. That means their retirement savings are in the triple digits, he wears only dirty white tank tops, and she still drives the pink Karmann Ghia she had in high school.
Andie has a best friend named Phillip “Duckie” Dale. An eccentric outsider, Phillip used to wear vintage clothing but now wears Kirkland Signature khakis because they’re more roomy on his dad bod. He’s in love with Andie but keeps it a secret because his multiple SSRIs dull most of his emotions.
Duckie and Andie belong to the local pickleball league, where the arrogant “richie” members constantly bully them. Specifically, hotshot Steff McKee, who always wears a white blazer and open-necked dress shirt because he misses Miami Vice and wishes that toxic masculinity still ruled. He’s the league champion, even though he has a bad case of emphysema from smoking for forty years.
Andie works part-time at a record/vape/lash-extension store called Trax to help pay off the predatory art-school loans she took out in 1986. One day, she mentions the pickleball league’s fundraising dance to her manager, Iona, who is spunky despite having arthritis and cataracts. Andie says she’d rather down a few CBD gummies and binge murder shows on BritBox with her cat than go to the dance.
Then Andie’s life changes when balding Blane McDonagh, pickleball team captain and Steff’s best friend, bumps into Andie at the gastroenterologist, where they’re both getting their annual colonoscopies.
“Listen, uh, do you want to go out on Friday?” he asks, nervous to talk to a middle-aged woman in public.
“Yeah, sure, assuming I don’t have any polyps,” Andie answers. She’s relieved her menopouch is flat thanks to having diarrhea for the last twenty-four hours.
On the night of the date, Andie waits for Blane, but he’s late and doesn’t reply to her ten texts, two emails, one WhatsApp, two DMs, and one tweet. Duckie shows up on the bike he rides since his driver’s license was revoked for driving with open containers of White Claw too many times. He learns that she’s waiting for Blane and sneers, “Blane? His name is Blane? That’s not a name; it’s a major appliance.” Then he remembers that he has a stepdaughter named Blaykeeleigh and apologizes.
Blane finally shows up and takes Andie to a party at Steff’s mini manse in a gated golf-course community. Andie is snubbed by the rich partygoers after they look at her vegan shoes and NPR tote bag and correctly assume she’s a libtard. Upset, Andie takes Blane to the local Applebee’s “We Love the ’80s! Night” only to see Iona and Duckie already there, slinging back strawberry Dollaritas and loaded waffle fries.
Fresh off singing “Try a Little Tenderness” karaoke, Duckie becomes hostile because his SSRIs don’t mix with bottom-shelf tequila, so Blane takes Andie home. She’s embarrassed that she lives in an ungentrified part of town, but Blane says he heard it’s going condo soon, so she won’t be living there for long, anyway. They kiss, and he asks her to go to the pickleball fundraiser. Later, Steff texts him a few Bumble links to women still of childbearing age, and Blane wonders if he made a mistake.
At home, Mike surprises Andie with a pink dress he bought for her on Temu for $4.99. It’s flammable but nice. They then argue because Mike’s been pretending to work remotely for Biden’s reelection campaign when he’s actually just an anonymous Twitter troll paid by one of Putin’s shell companies. He cries and says it’s hard to be a white man in America. “Oh fuck off,” Andie says. “I just had ten hot flashes, and I’ll be sent to a work camp if Trump wins, you weak-minded wanker.” She leaves to spend time with her vibrator and estrogen cream.
The next day at pickleball, Andie confronts Blane for ghosting her. He stammers that he forgot he asked someone else to the dance, because “men get brain fog too.” Andie calls him a liar and runs away, hoping her pelvic floor holds. Duckie overhears Steff trashing Andie and attacks him with his seventy-five-dollar pickleball racket, screaming, “Everyone knows you cheat on dinks!” Steff wants to humiliate Duckie by throwing him into the ladies room, but all of the restrooms are now gender-neutral, so he just leaves.
Andie visits Iona at her adult senior living facility and asks for one of her old prom dresses. She then callously cuts up Iona’s treasured possession and Frankensteins it to the Temu dress. The end result is something that would immediately get her banished from Project Runway.
Despite that, Andie arrives at the pickleball gala with Duckie, who wears an ironic ’80s CHOOSE LIFE T-shirt. He soon worries everyone will think he voted Republican, so he puts on a sweater. A drunk Steff makes fun of the couple until Blane tells him to stop, finally realizing that Steff wants Andie for himself. “Bros before hoes,” Steff slurs. “Also, I think I might need to go to rehab.”
Blane shakes Duckie’s hand and apologizes to Andie, telling her that he always believed in her, he just didn’t believe in himself, and that he will always love her. “We had, like, one date, and he loves me?” Andie says. “Also, he’s in his midfifties and has millions in assets, so what’s with the low self-esteem?”
Duckie agrees it’s a major red flag, but he’s flying on some Molly he got from a busboy and tells Andie to go after him, or he’ll never take her to another fundraiser. He then sees a woman on the dance floor smiling at him, but she has a lot of fillers, so she might actually be crying.
Andie catches up with Blane in the parking lot and they kiss while his iPhone plays OMD’s “If You Leave” from his Spotify playlist. She then adjusts her trifocal glasses, realizes that she’s too old to put up with any more of Blane’s shit, and mutters, “Fuck the test audiences.” She turns around and goes back to dance with Duckie.