Tag Archives: romantic comedies

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An Unfortunate Movie Mixtape

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Juliet, Naked

by Brandon Thomas

Movies that mix music and quirk tend to punch me right in the feels (is a 36-year-old allowed to say “feels”?). Once, Begin Again and Sing Street are a few examples of movies that gave my tear ducts a workout. The only feelings Juliet, Naked conjured in me were boredom, apathy and a dash of frustration.

Annie (Rose Bryne) is stuck in a rut. She lives in her sleepy hometown and works the same job her father did. Her boyfriend, Duncan (Chris O’Dowd), is more interested in a long-disappeared musician than starting a family with her. When a CD demo for Duncan’s favorite musician, Tucker Crowe (Ethan Hawke), shows up at their home, Annie is the first to listen. Her negative reaction to the album, mixed with Duncan’s over-the-top positive one, sets off a chain of events that ends with Crowe himself visiting her in England.

I realized halfway through Juliet, Naked that director Jesse Peretz (Our Idiot Brother) was trying to reinvent the classic rom-com. Instead, it’s more of a Frankenstein’s monster hybrid, as one part indie drama mixed with your classic rom-com clichés makes for strange bedfellows. It’s not to say that these tropes couldn’t exist together – they could – but it would need to be in the hands of a stronger filmmaker.

The cast fares a little bit better. Hawke and Byrne do what they can with a messy script, and they have an undeniable chemistry. The problem – again – lies in that it sometimes feels like the characters are moving between two different films. One moment, Hawke’s character is lamenting his shortcomings as a father, and the next he’s in a hospital bed surrounded by all of his ex-wives/lovers. It’s a scene that wouldn’t feel out of place in a network sitcom.

Byrne is the one saving grace. She’s always been able to lift the material she’s given and it’s no different here. There’s a sweetness to Annie that never feels naïve. She’s a competent, driven woman who just hasn’t allowed herself to go after what she wants in life.

There’s a behind-the-camera pedigree to Juliet, Naked that makes its shortcomings all the more disappointing. It’s based on the book by Nick Hornby (About a Boy, High Fidelity), and produced by Judd Apatow (Bridesmaids, Superbad, Pineapple Express). Apatow has especially shown himself to be adept at producing really funny, thoughtful comedies.

Had Juliet, Naked kept both feet firmly in one genre, I think the film would’ve had something nice to say. Instead, it’s a murky mess of what could have been.

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Underwhelmed

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Overboard

by Hope Madden

More than 30 years ago, Garry Marshall directed one of those Eighties films: good-heartedly hateful and contrived in that colorfully rom-com way, Overboard.

It is the ridiculous story of comeuppance wherein a small-town carpenter (Kurt Russell), cheated out of payment by a scantily clad, uppity billionaire (Goldie Hawn), concocts a plan to get the money he is due when she washes ashore with amnesia.

Flash forward several decades and director Rob Greenberg makes his feature debut after a lifetime of sitcoms, revisiting Leslie Dixon’s 1987 screenplay.

His update sees Kate (Anna Faris) as a single mom just trying to pass that damn nursing exam so she can quit her two jobs (pizza delivery, carpet cleaner) and offer a better life for her three daughters.

She’s sent to sop up the champagne spillage on a yacht, meets spoiled heir Leonardo (Eugenio Derbez), argues and ends up in far worse financial trouble than she’d been in a day before.

Now she’ll never get that nurse’s license!

When the billionaire washes up back in Elk Cove, Kate’s pizza place boss (Eva Longoria) figures the least he owes Kate is some some day labor (so she doesn’t have to replace that job he lost for her), and enough chores to give Kate the time to study.

Only until the exam—then we’ll tell him.

The premise is no fresher or more believable this time around, though they do update in a couple of interesting ways. Leonardo is a Mexican heir; the day laborers only speak Spanish and most of the pizza crew is bilingual Mexican American, so about fifty percent of the film is subtitled.

This is an interesting choice, since the point of both versions of Overboard is to point out the hideous gap in work ethic and morality you can find between the rich and poor. Choosing not to “Roseanne” that image of the American working poor was a solid decision. Not that it can help this movie.

This is simply not a premise that has the strength to stand the test of time. The original was a success on the charm and natural (and obviously abiding) charisma of its stars. Why was it successful? Goldie Hawn was a comic genius, Kurt Russell was gorgeous, and it was the Eighties. That is it.

The remake has none of those things going for it. Greenberg, updating Dixon’s script with Bob Fisher (Wedding Crashers), can’t write his way out of the contrivance. Though Faris is certainly a talent, she lacks the charisma to carry a film.

Perhaps most damaging is the utter absence of chemistry between the leads, making every inch toward romance feel unnatural and, honestly, almost creepy.

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Me Be Pretty One Day

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I Feel Pretty

by Hope Madden

Trainwreck, the 2015 big-screen break out for comic Amy Schumer (and LeBron James and John Cena) offered a wise about-face for the rom-com.

Written by Schumer, the film simultaneously embraced and subverted tradition by basically casting a female in the traditionally male role of eternal adolescent who accidentally finds love and, therefore, adulthood.

She returns to the romantic comedy with I Feel Pretty, film that is neither romantic nor comedic, unfortunately.

Schumer plays Renee Bennett, a perfectly attractive woman.

So there’s your first problem.

I will give writers/directors Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein credit for one thing. When Bennett hits her head at a spinning class and wakes up believing she’s traffic-stopping gorgeous, at least the film does not stoop to showing us the flawless physical image Renee sees in the mirror. Thanks for that.

So, it’s only after a traumatic brain injury that Amy Schumer can consider herself attractive.

Now she has all the confidence she needs to go after that receptionist gig at the big cosmetics firm. (Wait! A romantic comedy where a receptionist can afford a small but cool NYC apartment? Yes, that checks out.)

Things take a turn for the better whenever CEO Avery LeClair (Michelle Williams) appears onscreen. Her weirdly spot-on performance as the baby-voiced heiress is a riot—and the only unpredictable moments in the film belong to her.

Schumer does what she can with this superficial, blandly rote script. She has excellent chemistry with her co-stars (Busy Phillips, Aidy Bryant, Rory Scovel), regardless of their underwritten roles. But when you have a comic talent like Schumer on the bill and you still cannot think of anything funnier than seeing a pretty woman fall down, your writing is weak.

Let’s not even address the fact that all Renee wants in life is to work for a cosmetics company and maybe, if we all dream big enough, she might be the new face of a cosmetics line!

Jesus.

In summation, I Feel Pretty is Big meets Shallow Hal, if those films suggested that all Tom Hanks needed was confidence enough to believe he should be objectified, then all would be well.

Can Amy Schumer just write the next Amy Schumer movie? Please?

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Jiggidy Jog

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Home Again

by Hope Madden

Let’s say you love Nancy Meyers’s movies – you know, those fantasies like It’s Complicated or Something’s Gotta Give where late-middle-aged women land all the attention, sex, career opportunities and marital comeuppance they’ve always really deserved, only to realize that they had it all in them the whole time. Let’s say you love those, but you’d like them to skew maybe 15 – 20 years younger.

Boy howdy, is Home Again the movie for you.

Written and directed by Meyers’s daughter Hallie Meyers-Shyer, it spins a familiar, albeit younger, yarn.

Newly single, freshly 40, gorgeous, living in an unbelievable house and raising two precocious and adorable kids – man, does Alice Kinney (Reese Witherspoon) have it rough.

One contrivance leads to another and suddenly three Hollywood dreamers in the form of gorgeous twentysomething dudes hoping to realize their moviemaking ambitions are living in her guest house.

Why not? I mean, except for the high potential for murder and/or child molestation, but this isn’t that kind of movie. This is the kind that would never happen.

What will happen when Alice’s  estranged husband (Michael Sheen) comes home unexpectedly?

Gasp – do you think he’ll finally see how special she is? Will she hear all those things she’s wanted to hear from him for years? Will it work, or will she slowly realize that she deserves better?

Hell, she deserves it all!

I will tell you who deserves better—besides the audience—Reese Witherspoon.

How great was she earlier this year in HBO’s Big Little Lies? Well, she’s not great here. She coasts along with awkward and/or appreciative faces. She does have some fun chemistry with the underused (but always welcome) Candice Bergen.

None, surprisingly, with the usually reliable Sheen and less than none with the trio of hotties (Nat Wolff, Pico Alexander and Jon Rudnitsky) taking up residence.

It doesn’t help that those actors are bland (Wolff) to middling (Alexander) to weak (Rudnitsky).

No problem appears to be especially troubling, no solution feels earned, no relationship looks authentic. Even Nancy Meyers’s most self-indulgent work had a hard earned charm about it.

What Home Again needed was a different Meyers. That or a scary clown.

 

 

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Table of Misfit Toys

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Table 19

by Matt Weiner

If you sit a group of strangers together at a wedding reception, you’ll find out that each one of them is a brain… a basket case… a criminal… and of course a perky princess to propel the story forward.

Yes, the romantic comedy Table 19 gets its something (heavily) borrowed from John Hughes, especially The Breakfast Club. After an unceremonious breakup with the bride’s brother, now ex-maid of honor Eloise McGarry (Anna Kendrick) gets banished to the table of rejects and outcasts at the reception.

Eloise, still pining for her Teddy (Wyatt Russell), is unsympathetic to the quirks and sad stories that bind their table together. But as backstories get revealed, the tablemates quickly learn they are united in their profound misery.

If this sounds a little bleak for a brisk (like, 87 minutes brisk) romcom, just wait until the themes take a sharp turn from cake-related slapstick to everyone’s favorite comedy subjects like unplanned pregnancy, infidelity and death.

The story, written by director Jeffrey Blitz with indie darlings Jay and Mark Duplass, gets into dark territory, in particular the cautionary tale of Bina and Jerry Kepp (Lisa Kudrow and Craig Robinson). The married couple don’t even care enough to hate each other anymore, and their apathy is like a jarring memento mori for a lighthearted wedding romp.

So many of the casual asides and throwaway lines are streaked with this sort of misanthropy, and it’s a shame that the movie lacks the audacity to see it through to the finish. It doesn’t help that the comedy part of the romantic comedy is light on laughs—with the exception of Stephen Merchant, who commits above and beyond to finding both humor and pathos in his thinly sketched character, cousin Walter.

Instead, we’re left with lessons learned and lukewarm nostalgia, complete with 80s covers from the wedding band. Sure, you could just stick with the original article and fire up a John Hughes marathon. But if your tolerance for formula is already that high, and you like watching a great cast make the most of an inconsistent premise—and you have 80-odd minutes to spare—you could slog through a lot worse. Like an actual wedding.

Verdict-2-5-Stars

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Bridget Jones, Back in Medium-Rare Form

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Bridget Jones’s Baby

by Matt Weiner

It’s been over a decade since Bridget Jones last went through an embarrassing series of personal and professional mishaps on the way to learning that opposites attract after all. Anyone expecting a change in formula will be disappointed, but there are worse ways to spend two hours finding Mr. Right (again) than with Jones, thanks in large part to Renée Zellweger.

Zellweger grounds Jones this time around as quirky, confident and—more or less—competent TV news producer. Colin firth returns as the priggish Mark Darcy, and Patrick Dempsey steps into the Hugh Grant point on the love triangle as the charming Jack Qwant. (Metaphor alert: Qwant made a fortune off a dating website but hasn’t found his own perfect match.)

Jones has one-night stands with both men, getting pregnant by one of them and setting off a competition between the suitors to prove their worth as potential fathers—and win Jones’s heart in the process. (A fear of needles rules out the in-utero test that would’ve made for a much briefer film.)

Despite the tension the film wants to set up between Darcy and Qwant, the best running theme for much of the movie is that Jones doesn’t need either of the boobs vying for her. And it’s a credit to the film that the madcap finale turns out some of the movie’s biggest laughs without cheapening everything Jones has done to get to that point.

Bridget Jones stands on her own far more in this film than the previous two, with most of the supporting characters—from best friend Miranda (Sarah Solemani) to Darcy and Qwant—simply along for well-timed banter or convenient plot devices. Two exceptions are Bridget’s father, Colin—filled with a depth of emotion that far exceeds Jim Broadbent’s criminal lack of screen time—and Bridget’s physician, Dr. Rawlings (Emma Thompson). Thompson delivers every line and fixes every stare with the tart awareness that reduces the men in Bridget’s life from masters of the universe to emperors with no clothes.

Bridget Jones’s Baby is directed by Sharon Maguire—who also directed the first Jones film, Bridget Jones’s Diary—and the latest entry is a welcome improvement on 2004’s inane Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. But the film has little of the light touch and keen observation that made Bridget Jones’s Diary a refreshing romantic comedy back in 2001.

This latest installment doesn’t break any new ground for romcoms. The satire is easy, toothless and, somehow, already dated. But this marks a comfortable return for Bridget Jones. She’s hard to root against even in bad times. Maybe it’s unfair to grade on a curve, but we’ve seen Jones much worse off than this. It’s hard not to crack a smile when she’s on top.

Verdict-2-5-Stars

 

 

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How to Borrow Liberally

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How to be Single

by Hope Madden

Upending rom-com clichés has become its own cliché, and yet, with the right minds and talent, it can still be a fresh and funny experience. Please see Trainwreck.

Seriously. Please see it.

How to Be Single makes a valiant attempt to send up genre clichés as it follows four ladies and a handful of gentlemen, each failing to make that love connection with the Manhattan backdrop. It tries too hard, honestly, but it does get off a few good lines along the way.

Dakota Johnson anchors the ensemble as Alice, our everygirl, a new college grad ready to take a break from her longtime beau, head to the Big Apple, and find herself.

Alice’s circle includes her workaholic sister (Leslie Mann) and a wild new BFF (Rebel Wilson). Both comic veterans deliver some genuine laughs – thanks to an occasionally insightful script by Abby Kohn, Marc Silverstein, and Dana Fox – but Wilson, in particular, needs to find a new gimmick.

A revolving door of male characters includes one kooky performance by Jason Mantzoukas (a bright spot in this film, as he was in Dirty Grandpa). Ken Lacy also makes an appearance as basically the exact same character he played in the far superior film Obvious Child.

Which is one of the weirdest things about How to Be Single – it brazenly borrows from other, better films. Leslie Mann has a conversation that is almost identical to one from This Is 40, while her storyline steals an awful lot – including the boyfriend – from Obvious Child. Add to that the fact that Wilson’s boozy party girl schtick was lifted wholesale from Trainwreck, and you start to wonder if the film’s title should be How to Commit Larceny.

This is not to say the movie is bereft of humor. It does offer a handful of laughs, and it often lulls you into believing that characters are about to follow a formula, only to have that tiresome trope cleverly undermined.

It’s not that the film is bad, it’s just that it’s not as good as many other films and it knows it.

Verdict-2-5-Stars

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Does the Sex Part Always Get in the Way?

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Sleeping with Other People

By Christie Robb

The latest rom-com to follow in the footsteps of 1989’s classic When Harry Met Sally is Leslye Headland’s Sleeping with Other People (which was originally pitched as “When Harry Met Sally for Assholes.” It also examines the question of whether heterosexual men and women can be friends.

Like When Harry Met Sally, SWOP starts with a relatively unrealistic flashback scene to college days where unfortunate period clothing choices and bad bangs are supposed to provide sufficient suspension of disbelief for us to see two folks knocking on middle age as dorm inhabitants. Here we meet our romantic leads, Lainey (Alison Brie) and Jake (Jason Sudeikis), two old virgins aching to give it up. He’s waiting for the right person. She’s been scorned by her person. They decide to bone each other.

Flash forward 12 years and Lainey and Jake meet for the second time at a sex addicts meeting. He, having been abandoned by Lainey after one night, only sleeps with women he is comfortable being left by. She’s still addicted to the love of the dude who rejected her in college and is furtively banging him.

Jake and Lainey rekindle their collegiate spark, but because of their issues, decide to keep things platonic, employing a safe word whenever the sex part rears its head. Of course, things get complicated.

Perhaps SWOP doesn’t break new ground in rom-commery, but it’s delightful nonetheless. The aspirational dialogue, reminiscent of Gilmore Girls in its sweeping references, is brainy but also captivatingly nasty. (There’s a whole rant about “juices” and a masturbation demo that some college kids probably should be taking notes on.)

The raunch helps balance out the more saccharine moments. The casting helps as well. Natasha Lyonne (Orange is the New Black) is great, if somewhat underutilized, as Lainey’s gay best friend. Andrea Savage (Dinner for Schmucks) and Jason Mantzoukas (Neighbors) shine as the cool married couple with kids. Billy Eichner (Difficult People/Parks and Recreation) has an amazing little monologue as a sex addict. The only thing really missing is LeBron, who I believe should now be contractually obligated to appear at least once in every rom-com.

Brie and Sudeikis also really work. Their chemistry is believable and they pull off both the smutty repartee and the longing equally well.

Stick around for the end credits.

Verdict-4-0-Stars

 

 

 

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What Are Nouns?

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People Places Things

by Hope Madden

I dare you to dislike Jemaine Clement. Just try to – it’s not even possible.

Whether he’s the aspiring pop star of Flight of the Conchords, the sexy vampire of What We Do In the Shadows, or just the voice of the damn horse in those Direct TV ads, he is always memorable, likeable, and hilarious.

In People Places Things, Clement steps out of the shadows and takes on romantic lead responsibilities as newly single graphic novelist Will. Will finds himself lonely and directionless after longtime partner/baby mama Charlie (Stephanie Allynne) leaves him for a monologist named Gary (a very funny Michael Chernus).

Nothing really works out well as Will floats through many failed attempts at living – teaching the graphic novel, mentoring a talented student, dating her mother, spending more time with his (ridiculously adorable) twin daughters, finishing his book, accepting Charlie’s new life and impending marriage.

Filmmaker James Strouse has been writing movies about lost men for a long time, beginning with the under-appreciated Lonesome Jim back in ‘05. People Places Things is his most surefooted script, populated with appealing characters that are nicely realized by Strouse’s strong cast.

Clement can generate chemistry with anyone who walks on screen, which is no doubt part of his charm. This is particularly true with Regina Hall, who shines in a very different kind of comedic role than those she usually takes. The humor is sly and a bit quiet, but wonderful nonetheless.

Allynne succeeds with the most difficult role, delivering a believably neurotic counterpoint to Will, a woman pretending to be sure of herself and her future who is actually exactly as lost as he is.

In a lot of ways, the film serves up a traditionally structured if attractively indie rom-com, but the way the cast – Clement, in particular – underplays the drama and lets the comedy breathe a bit, you don’t feel manipulated. The film is somewhat daringly low-key, relying on a talented cast to unveil the longing and loneliness behind the laughs.

It’s a messy, sweet, funny look at self-discovery and relationships, masquerading as a romantic comedy.

Verdict-3-5-Stars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_8K2QyI6p4

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Of Vice and Men

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Trainwreck

by Hope Madden

Ten years ago, The 40-Year-Old Virgin introduced the new voice of cinematic comedy. A decade later, 40 writer/director Judd Apatow is – for the first time – directing a film he didn’t write. Why? Because there’s a new sheriff in town and Apatow has the clout to ensure that the next voice in cinematic comedy gets heard.

Trainwreck is the bawdy, wise, hilarious, about-fucking-time romantic comedy written by and starring Amy Schumer. Startlingly honest and utterly lacking in pretension, she followed up years of refreshingly raw stand-up comedy by destroying cable TV with her brilliant Inside Amy Schumer. (YouTube 12 Angry Men Inside Amy Schumer immediately to see just how savvy a writer she is.)

She and Apatow collaborate on this sometimes touching, boisterously funny upending of rom-com clichés. (As Amy narrates the lovey-dovey montage backdropped by the Manhattan skyline, even she finds it cloying, quipping, “I hope this love montage ends like Jonestown.”)

Schumer plays Amy, a heavy drinking, sexually active (very active) writer for a magazine that runs stories like “How Does Eating Garlic Change the Taste of Semen?” and “You’re Not Gay, She’s Boring.” Her editor – the ever glorious Tilda Swinton – assigns her a piece on a sports doctor (Bill Hader), and Amy is reluctantly pulled into the world of monogamy.

The screenwriting is ingenious. This is a role reversal romantic comedy, basically, but it’s far too crafty to rely on that as a gimmick. On the surface, Amy’s the same protagonist trapped in an extended adolescence that has become commonplace in Apatow’s filmography, but there is no denying Schumer’s ability to find something new and authentic to bring to the mix.

She’s aided by an impeccable cast. Bill Hader has quickly become one of the most versatile and authentic actors of the SNL alum. Swinton’s magnificent, LeBron James is deadpan hilarious and a very good sport, as is John Cena, and Dave Attell is a hoot. Cameos galore draw belly laughs in a comedy that has something to say underneath hundreds of well-aimed gags.

Trainwreck might be the best romantic comedy since Bull Durham.

Verdict-4-0-Stars