Jesse and Celeste Forever is a romantic comedy, but it doesn’t tell that exact same romantic comedy story that you’re worried it does. Instead of detailing the particulars of two people meeting and getting together, it starts with them getting separated and goes from there. The basic setup is this: two best friends have been together forever, but they’re getting older and the girl (Rashida Jones) is getting progressively more frustrated that the guy (Andy Samberg) won’t get his life together—so they’re getting divorced. But, is it a good idea to get divorced when you’re already married to your best friend? Extended adolescence or not, is there any better life out there than spending all of your time with someone who’s loved you forever? What exactly are the essential elements of a relationship that will make it last throughout the years? These are the questions that the new film from co-writers Rashida Jones and Will McCormack and director Lee Toland Krieger ask. And they’re the sorts of questions you’ll be left pondering when you leave the theater as well. Oh yeah, this is the sort of movie that will have you pondering when you leave the theater—so I guess I’m saying it’s pretty good.
It wasn’t clear from the start that I was going to like it so much though. Actually, the film takes a little while to get going. Though it eventually gets to places where it brings the truth, its entire setup comes from a moment that is a little hard to swallow. And, in addition to being hard to swallow, the main conflict that get introduced to the narrative takes quite a bit of setup to get established. This is a movie that earns more and more of your esteem as it goes on. The parts where it’s trying to be funny are legitimately funny, and the parts where it’s trying to be poignant are legitimately affecting, but the parts in between where people are doing too much talking, they can get kind of boring. The good news is, as the film goes on, the meaty parts and the funny parts become more concurrent, and the filler starts to dissipate, revealing a movie that’s well worth your time, if you just give it a chance.
The bulk of the work rests on the shoulders of Jones and Samberg, so the film’s success is pretty dependent on how good they are in the lead roles. Happily, both are charming and funny, so it doesn’t take much for them to get you on their side. Admittedly, Samberg doesn’t prove to be as versatile a presence as Jones, but that very well might be because he doesn’t get quite as much to do as her. It turns out Jones wrote herself a lot of showoff scenes, and her efforts have bore fruit. In nothing else I’ve seen her in has she been as impressive as she is here. More than anything, Jesse and Celeste Forever is a great showcase for what she has to offer as an actress, and one can only hope that it will lead to her getting a buttload of acting offers, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon style.
There are a handful of really fun supporting turns here as well. Ari Graynor and Eric Christian Olsen play the titular couple’s best friends, but, surprisingly, they’re not the ones who manage to resonate.While they’re perfectly acceptable as the supporting rocks, they get the entire film stolen out from under them by co-writer McCormack, who’s playing a drug dealer named Skillz. The first time this character shows up, it seems weird. What does a drug dealer have to do with the rest of this movie? But, by the time the end credits roll, he will have completely stolen your heart and made you laugh your guts out. Which seems to be a trend with this movie; once you give things a a chance to prove themselves, they’ll reveal themselves as worthy. Elijah Woods playing Celeste’s gay co-worker didn’t quite work for me though. I fail to see what his character’s gayness added to the film other than a handful of winky jokes that took the piss out of portrayals of gay guys in romantic comedies, but still seemed kind of insulting themselves. Just because you acknowledge that you’re stereotyping people doesn’t mean you’re not stereotyping people.
And while we’re on the subject of things that rubbed me wrong, I’ll also mention that this is the sort of trendy indie movie that forces you to reflect on the way you feel about “hipsters.” Whether it was due to things written into the script, or decisions the director made, or a combination of both, there’s an absolute abundance of hip and trendy lifestyle stuff that appears in this film, to the point that it becomes kind of distracting. I can’t help but think that it would be nicer if more indie films would more accurately represent what real people’s lives are actually like, rather than try to look as cutting edge as possible. Wouldn’t they be so much more relatable?
I kind of get it though. Escapism is a big part of going to the cinema, and a movie can offer up a big dose of that by being glamorous. Making an indie movie that’s stuffed full of flash mobs and characters who own food trucks (disclaimer: neither of those things actually happen here) isn’t really any different from making an action movie that paints its hero as being the ultimate example of masculinity; but when your characters are going through a hidden closet to hang out at a secret Mexican bar (disclaimer: this actually does happen here), it gets to the point where enough is enough. Similar to how action movies can rob themselves of tension by making their heroes too invulnerable, these sorts of films can become cartoony and unrelatable when they go too far in crafting every little aspect of their character’s lives as being hip and enviable.
On the flip side of the coin, Jesse and Celeste Forever is pretty spot on when it comes to a subplot involving a pop star (Emma Roberts). Sure, the plot itself feels a little random and inessential, but it at least manages to reinforce the themes of the main plot: stuff like learning to be accepting and losing the rigidity in how you expect other people to live their lives. The real revelatory aspect of this thread, however, is in how it manages to humanize a pop star. At first it paints the girl as your typical, vapid, slutty fame whore who’s not talented enough to make music, but later on it reminds you that she too is just a person struggling against her neuroses and trying to grab her little chunk of happiness. Most comedies would just use a pop star character for gags and cynical satire of modern culture, but this film is smart enough to remind us that we’re living in a world that’s full of shades of gray. And that’s the sort of thing that makes it such a worthwhile watch, especially as far as romantic comedies are concerned. It’s not cookie-cutter or typical. It’s complex and contemplative, and, at the same time, it still brings the laughs.
I would like to have a couple of words with its writers about how Halloween costumes based on wordplay aren’t cool though...
