Last
night the Tribeca Film Festival hosted free screenings of When Harry Met Sally in all five boroughs (except Brooklyn, where
winds were just too windy). For some reason, New Yorkers collectively chose the
rom-com for Tribeca’s Film For All promotion, even though we could all more
easily relate to New York films like Death Wish and The Exterminator. If you
haven’t seen it by now, you’re probably never going to. However, those who
remember when Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan were movie stars will appreciate most
of the gags in David Wain’s They Came
Together (trailer
here), opening
this Friday in New York, which is practically like another character in the
film.
Should
you doubt it, Joel and Molly will assert the New Yorkiness of their romance
right from the start, as they recount their story for another couple with the
profound misfortune to be having dinner with them. As the flashback narrative
commences, Joel is about to break up with Tiffany, his hot on the outside, icy
on the inside girlfriend. Since Molly is still smarting from her last break-up,
their mutual friends want to fix them up (at a Halloween party).
Instead,
they bicker like cats and dogs. It hardly helps matter when Molly learns Joel
works for the candy store conglomerate trying to force her cutesy corner store
out of business. Of course they will still fall for it, but they will take
turns sabotaging their budding relationship.
Wain
and co-writer Michael Showalter are so busy skewering romantic comedy clichés they
do not even bother wasting time on boring stuff like characterization. Their
humor whipsaws back and forth between droll satire and unrepentantly naughty
slapstick. It is often quite funny, but after a while viewers will realize
there is nothing for them to invest in emotionally. Even Mel Brooks classics
(the gold standard of movie spoofs) had a bit of heart anchoring them. TC Together is really more like a serial
skit or a web series than a movie. Still, you have to respect Wain and
Showalter’s willingness to tip over sacred cows and subvert viewers expectations
by twisting the very rom-com conventions they are sending up.
As
Molly and Joel, Amy Poehler and Paul Rudd are game for just about any joke in
questionable taste, but they are still rather low wattage when it comes to
screen charisma. On the other hand, Cobie Smulders’ Tiffany is appropriately cold
and decorative, while audiences may never look at SVU’s Christopher Meloni in the same way after his outrageous turn
as Joel’s boss, Roland. Nora Jones also has an amusing cameo as herself, but if
you do not remember when MTV and VH-1 played music videos in the 1980s, you probably
won’t get it.
