Not being a makeup consumer, I can’t say that with authority, and neither, I suspect, can screenwriters Adam Cole-Kelly and Sam Pitman. Their invention doesn’t seem like the stroke of genius the pic suggests it is, as it doesn’t look at all conducive to the way women actually use cosmetics. It’s implausible in just about every respect, down to the new product they introduce at a gala Luna hosts. The less said about the sequence in which they publicly go up against Claire Luna, the better. Few rom-coms have ever been this eager to push their stars back together, and it happens here with no friction at all.

Once they’ve called it quits on their relationship, the movie blazes through a trio of mini-scenes in which friends urge them to reconsider. So Boss truncates the conflict: We get one extended bit of physical comedy in which Mel sabotages Mia, followed by a scene in which they publicly blow up at each other.

Unfortunately, everyone involved seems to understand that this movie only crackles when Haddish and Byrne are feeding off each other’s energy - even when that means that Mia is coolly trying to push the women past an obstacle that Mel, trying hard to please everyone, doesn’t yet see. Before the women are even in the parking lot, the viperish Luna is plotting ways to make them hate each other. When Mia balks at selling what the two have built, they settle on a compromise: Luna will take 49 percent, only getting a majority in the unlikely event - how could such a thing ever happen?! - that Mia and Mel end their partnership. Josh summons the partners to a meeting, where Luna offers to pay all their debts in return for a 51 percent stake in the business. Enter Josh (Karan Soni), the snippy yes-man to makeup magnate Claire Luna (Hayek).

Or tries to: She’s been protecting Mia from the knowledge that their business is nearly half a million dollars in debt, and something needs to change soon. Mia’s the creative one Mel keeps the books in order. They mix their own formulas, package them into gimmicky gift packs like a “One-Night Stand Kit” (a hit, we’re told) and employ two of the kind of colorful characters typically seen only in rom-coms: Haughty Barrett, played to the hilt by Emmy-winning Pose star Billy Porter and Jennifer Coolidge’s Sydney, whose dialogue strains for the kind of outrageous cluelessness Coolidge has specialized in for 20 years.

Now housemates, they run a small but well-liked cosmetics shop that bears their names. Mia (Haddish) and Mel (Byrne) have been inseparable since middle school, the latter being taken in by Mia’s family when her mother ran afoul of the law.

The boss movie rated r