"Celeste and Jesse Forever" is a film of missed opportunities and sad blandness. It's not terrible by any account but everything's just so poorly half-assed that it's a shame since the setup of the movie seems so promising and ripe with dramatic potential.
Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg play a couple that is currently going through a divorce but instead of bitterly fighting each other they remain best friends. Talk about realistic depiction of relationships, right? Of course their plan doesn't work out and when Samberg meets another woman, Jones doesn't know how to deal with the situation.
If the filmmakers would have had any kind of inspiration this could have led to a memorable anti rom-com. But no, they go for the most obvious story developments and conflicts, almost every scene drowning in tired cliches with the feeling of "Been there, done that". On top of that Samberg seems to be miscast as the co-lead. We know he has talent as a comedian but here he's just not up to the challenge to create a three-dimensional character. Then again, the script doesn't give him much to work with besides stock situations. When the ending finally comes director Lee Toland Krieger doesn't have the mercy of just letting it go, instead he adds scenes that are completely unneeded or asked for just to hammer the glaring message into the audience' heads.
Naturally not everything about "Celeste And Jesse Forever" is entirely mediocre. Rashida Jones again proves that she has potential as a leading lady, some of her scenes are even moving and involving beyond the limitations of the insignificant screenplay. In fact, there are a couple of good scenes. Problem is that all those are in the trailer already. So if you want to save yourself time and money, just watch the trailer, you won't miss anything major besides lots of unnecessary fluff and filler.
No comments:
Post a Comment