Starring: Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler, Bill Hader, Cobie Smulders, Max Greenfield, Melanie Lynsky, Ed Helms, Jason Mantzoukas
Directed by: David Wain
Synopsis: When Joel and Molly meet, it’s hate at first sight: his big Corporate Candy Company threatens to shut down her quirky indie 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.
I have to say that They Came Together was a real pleasant surprise. I’ve had it on my watchlist for some time purely because of the cast. I just expected it to be a slightly above average, easy-watch, rom-com. It was, in fact, one of the funniest films I’ve seen this year.
If you think it’s going to be a straight forward rom-com then think again. It is actually a parody of rom-coms, and has more in common with the likes of Airplane!, Naked Gun and Hot Shots than the latest Jennifer Aniston vehicle. There are sight gags, play on words gags and just gags that rip the proverbial out of nearly every rom-com you have seen. I might be making it out to sound like Scary Movie or something, but it’s not, so don’t let that put you off. For instance, there is a moment where Paul Rudd’s character ‘Joel’ is sat drowning his sorrows at a bar and he asks for a double. The barman makes a comment, to which Rudd replies “you can say that again”, so the barman repeats himself. Now, usually the once would be enough with that joke, except it goes on like that about six times which just adds, in my opinion, to it’s absurdity and hilarity. The movies is like that throughout, and do you know what? It never got tiring!
The cast, led by the always likeable Rudd and Poehler are really funny. There are some big hitters in there like Helms and Hader who don’t get lots of screen time, but they play their roles well. Max Greenfield basically plays Schmidt from New Girl, but on the big screen and there are some surprising cameo’s too, which I won’t give away.
I couldn’t really find fault with the film but if I really nit picked I guess I would say that some of the lighting made the film feel a bit ‘TV’ at times. Not sure if that was budget or poor production, but it doesn’t really matter anyway. Like I said, nit picking!
They Came Together seems to have got a bad rap from people, holding just a 5.7 rating on IMDb but maybe those people didn’t realize that the film was making fun of the kinds of films that those critics were expecting to go and see. To me, and maybe it was just the mood I was in having sat through Under The Skin the night before, They Came Together was a riot from start to finish. And if the test of a comedy is at least 6 hearty laughs during it’s run time, then this at least doubled, if not tripled that.