I desperately
wanted to like the romantic comedy spoof, They
Came Together, because few genres of film are as formulaic and predictable.
The problem with that film was the inability to exceed the sheer ridiculousness
of the popular date movie narrative. Even in the attempt to mock romantic
comedies, They Came Together simply
resembled the worst, most contrived, formulaic and cliché of the genre; like What If. If you picture any
stereotypical romantic comedy scenario, it is presented unironically somewhere
in the 98-minute running-time of this fluff art.
The film begins with a boy (Daniel Radcliffe)
meeting a girl (Zoe Kazan), falling easily into the predictable rhythm of the
saccharine stylings of the genre, wrapped in the pretense of hipster
cleverness. Wallace (Radcliffe) is a recent medical school dropout and
recovering from a bad break-up when he meets Chantry (Kazan
I have to stop
here for a second, because this is the part of the film which only works for
female audience members, because a girl who spends an entire evening talking to
a guy at a party without realizing that he could be interested in her
romantically is either a very cruel liar or unforgivably ignorant. And the fact
that Wallace agrees to just having friendship puts him in one of two
categories; a sleaze-bag intending to steal another man’s girlfriend, or a
spineless leech with the intention of latching on until an opportunity arises.
Anyone who believes anything else would be possible is naïve enough to live in
the world of romantic comedies.
So that is our
set-up for this irritatingly bubbly movie about dumb and selfish young people;
essentially just When Harry Met Sally for hipsters. There are other elements,
all taken from other romantic comedies. There is the cartoonishly protective
boyfriend (Rafe Spall), who the filmmakers must warp into a caricature to make
up for the fact that he is the most relatable character in the movie. There is
the obnoxiously slothful best-friend (Adam Driver) to spout out advice as
though he has the whole world figured out. There are impulsive romantic sprints
through airports and coincidental bump-ins amidst the 1.6 million citizens of Manhattan
The DVD includes
two featurettes; “Opposites Attract” and “Blurred Lines.”
Entertainment Value:
6.5/10
Quality of
Filmmaking: 4.5/10
Historical
Significance: 1/10
Special Features: 3/10
No comments:
Post a Comment