Here are the movies reviews I wrote for the June issue of EL Magazine, which will be distributed in Tokyo tomorrow.
Celeste and Jesse Forever
Though ostensibly a two-hander, this melancholic romantic comedy is mainly a showcase for Rashida Jones, who co-wrote the screenplay with former signficant other Will McCormack. Jones plays Celeste, a gainfully employed young woman who still has a very close relationship with ex-husband Jesse (Andy Samberg), an artist who has yet to make an impression on the market because he’s so easily distracted. Jesse still holds out for some sort of reconciliation with Celeste and continues to live in a bungalow in back of their modest L.A. house. In fact, it takes a little time for the viewer to realize that they are divorced since the opening scenes show them joking and making plans as if they were still married. Certainly the most vital component of the film is Jones’ and Samberg’s easy chemistry, a virtue that underlines how much romantic comedy has changed since its heyday. The banter is so breezy and situationally specific that it risks alienating the audience, who may feel left out of the gags, but it feels more natural even if the dialogue has been devised to evoke just such a reaction. If the methodology is up-to-the-minute (boomers will likely wince at the diction), the emotional parameters are the same as they’ve ever been in romantic comedies. It’s Jesse who won’t let go, but he’s also the first one to take a stab at dating, and in a plot device that should come across as trite but actually has impact, he knocks up a one night stand (Rebecca Dayan). Though the movie chronicles Jesse’s determination to be a good dad, it mostly lingers on Celeste’s difficulty in accepting the news, since one of the reasons she divorced him is that she didn’t think he could ever be the father of her children, a rationale that, in the beginning, is the movie’s best joke but as the relationship becomes clearer seems more like a convenient excuse that backfires. On the surface, Celeste has everything in that her marketing job fully engages her creative impulses; while Jesse, ostensibly the more creative one by lieu of his status as an “artist,” is so economically at sea that he scans as a loser. The script turns those stereotypes around, mainly through the character of Riley (Emma Roberts), a precocious pop idol assigned to Celeste by her company. When Jesse actually gets a job and seems on the verge of making the sort of life Celeste says she always wanted, her self-regard crumbles and she turns to the petulant, seemingly vacuous Riley for comfort—and finds it in the most disarming way. It’s not enough for a romantic comedy to overturn expectations. It has to do so for a reason, and without sacrificing what makes it a comedy. Celeste and Jesse Forever isn’t perfect in that regard, but it succeeds on its own modest terms. (photo: C&J Forever LLC) Continue reading
