It might be putting it bluntly, but hell - American rom-coms didn't always suck. The screwball comedies of the 30s and 40s made bickering artful and aspirational and Woody Allen added his own neurotic spin in the 70s. Now the commercial end of the genre makes fools of us all with its desperate women, bland men and rigid, asinine formula. These films are an insult to the intelligent, ambitious or independent, and are at best a guilty pleasure.
Modern rom-coms might be a joke but unfortunately they're not a joke with legs, as David Wain's Scary Movie-esque spoof They Came Together shows us over 83, largely excruciating, minutes. In what should have been a match made in comedy heaven Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler star as Joel and Molly, a couple who recount the story of their courtship during dinner with friends. It's immediately clear this will be served with big dollops of meta; "It's a kind-of corny romantic comedy," Joel weakly laughs. Oh, brother.
To its credit They Came Together feels comprehensive in its coverage of every rom-com cliché from the last 25 years but that makes it a pretty tedious watch as it's all far too familiar, not particularly biting in its ridicule and without any real identity and tension of its own. Like so many spoofs, Wain's fifth feature is stronger when it diverts off into more surreal territory (rather than simply observing the multitude of failings of a genre that it is after all emulating). Also, thanks in main to the considerable comedic talent of its leads, some of the cruder jokes might raise the occasional guilty guffaw - and these at least act as a welcome release from the more convoluted set-ups that fall flat.
A late in the day appearance by the mighty Michael Shannon (who arrives screaming as if he's been forced to watch this several times himself) isn't enough to save a film that feels pretty redundant from the off. With targets this obvious it's like shooting fish in a barrel, with a bazooka.
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