They Came Together **
This is a film for all those cutesy New York rom-com haters – especially those whose idea of watching You’ve Got Mail (starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks) is like someone running fingernails down a blackboard. Ironically, in spoofing Hollywood’s treaclely genre, you have to go through all the exact same clichés again that cause such an adverse reaction. Writer-director David Wain tries to keep our interest throughout 80+ minutes by sending these up but strangely, the opposite happens – you start longing for the real thing.
When Joel (Paul Rudd) and Molly (Amy Poehler) meet, it’s hate at first sight: his big Corporate Candy Company threatens to shut down her quirky indie sweetie shop. Plus, Joel is hung up on his sexy ex. But amazingly, they fall in love, until they break up about two thirds of the way through [Lionsgate UK].
Rudd and Poehler are well matched and suited to assault the rom-com. Having worked with Wain before on Wet Hot American Summer (2001), they’re perfectly cast to deliver the skillful jabs. However, their effect is only as good as the writing that starts wearing thin on gag material. Wain is clever to pick up on any possible audience ‘flagging’, having Joel and Molly’s wisecracking best friends (played by Bill Hader and Ellie Kemper) also become bored in Joel and Molly’s relationship story told over dinner out. The trouble is this doesn’t then rejuvenate our interest.
There are a few half decent laughs in They Came Together, as well as some that fall as flat as a pancake. The danger of mocking the rom-com that can be flimsy in substance is the satirist looks even more superficial, defeating the purpose altogether – unless you go to the ultra-silly, slapstick extreme of the Airplane! Saga. They Came Together is watchable but will make a better date DVD/Blu-ray when it gets its home entertainment release.
2/5 stars
By @FilmGazer
