Just Friends is Just Enough
I know I said that I wouldn’t let Bookie pick our next movie, but she has a steady supply of DVD’s coming from Blockbuster’s online program, and I’m too lazy to pick for myself, so once again, I defer to her judgment. On tap for date night, a romantic comedy called Just Friends, starring Ryan Reynolds and Amy Smart, and directed by Roger Krumble.
Now, I’m a hard sell when it comes to comedies, especially the romantic comedies, which I define as chick-flicks masquerading as comedies. These films are typically high on frenchy-foo-foo fluffy filler, but lacking in anything remotely close to humor. I also have an aversion to what passes as contemporary comedy these days. Apparently, I’m the only person on the planet who believes that Vince Vaughn is overrated and that Ben Stiller should be blasted into the vacuum of outer space without a pressure suit for fleecing Hollywood with his crappy Jim Carey impersonations. In fact, I could write a twelve-page argument, justifying the funds and research to send Stiller to Alpha-Centauri in his Zoolander costume to give any undiscovered lifeforms an example of what happens when we invest massive wealth into a specimen of poor judgment and inferior talent… but that would probably be straying off-topic.
Given that I’m what stand-ups would call a "tough room", and that romantic comedies have a long, rich tradition of sucking, I was fully expecting Just Friends to pick-up the chick-flick torch and fulfill its destiny of falling flat. I’ve never been so happy to be proven wrong. Though Just Friends is not one of the funniest films I’ve seen, it definitely holds its own among current films. There were a few "ho-hum, I wonder if there’s anything better on cable" moments, but Just Friends definitely had more good moments than bad, and I was sufficiently entertained.
Ryan Reynolds stars as Chris Brander, who begins as a chubby creampuff with a major boner over his high school best friend, Jamie Palamino (Amy Smart). Going off-topic again, Jamie Palamino is just an awesome name for the girl who’s the apple of the football team’s eye. I can’t possibly imagine a better name for the chick who puts-out for everyone except you. It’s right up there with Betty Rizzo, Laverne DeFazio, "Boom Boom" Belinda, and Samantha "the Human Panther". It’s an instant classic, as far as bad-girl names go.
Unfortunately, due to his physical appearance and nice-guy persona, Chris was relegated to the "friend zone", which is a place I knew all too-well as a high-school nerd. When Chris tried to make his feelings clear to Jamie, the results were so traumatic and embarrassing that it inspired a prominent change in his character. Fast-forward a decade, and Chris has become a lean, handsome music producer, and a misogynistic womanizer. An ironic twist of fate forces his private jet to land in his hometown, during the Christmas season, with one of his annoying, but lucrative musical clients in-tow (Played by Anna Faris as Samantha James. Thisis an obvious, but amusing parody of Paris Hilton and the untalented-but-wealthy tycoon-princess phenomenon our society’s going through- for reasons that are still unclear to me.) Chris is forced to face the demons of his past as he once again tries to woo Jamie… and of course, hilarity ensues.
Watching the suave, refined Chris regress to the ham-handed awkwardness of his youth while pursuing Jamie was sometimes difficult for me. With the exception of the weight issue, I identified with the character immediately, and some of his missteps were eerily similar to my own misadventures. I’m sure that many former high school geeks also identified with him. This gave Chris an added dimension of depth, and in addition to being entertained, I was really rooting for poor Chris to succeed.
I don’t expect much from today’s comedies, especially the romantic ones. But if I can get at least two near-death laughter experiences from a comedy, it automatically gets a free-pass. Just Friends provided me with three, dry-heaving, asthma-attack-inducing, uncontrollable laughter moments, so it earned my stamp of approval. As an added bonus, the chick-flick angle wasn’t played-out until 30-60 seconds before the ending credits, providing minimal-suckage!
1)Story: B- (A tad predictable. Borderline cliché, but still… nicely done.)
2)Acting: A
3)Visuals: B+
4)Originality/Innovation: B
5)Enjoyability Grade: B
6)Date Material: A (Finally, a winner!)
7)Contemporary Element (Will it be watchable two decades from now?): B+
8)Overall Grade: B+
9)DVD Extras: NA (Let‘s face it. I’m too lazy to look for extras.)
***
Blind Eye Turning: Poems, Prose, and other Scribbles, by Barry Dawson
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