Elevating the genre
is Somebody I Used to Know actually smarter/more grounded/less silly than other rom-coms?
Picture it: Twitter, July 2020. The pandemic was raging and people who were glued to their phones were desperate for something, anything to get mad about. And that’s when Dave Franco boldly stepped forward with a proclamation about his new script that was so ridiculous that he singlehandedly kept Twitter outrage going for at least a full day.
“We want to approach that film in a similar way that we did in this film, in the sense that we want to make a smarter, more elevated version of a romantic comedy. We were inspired by classics like ‘When Harry Met Sally,’ ‘Sleepless in Seattle,’ and ‘Pretty Woman,’ which are all films that are grounded, where the acting is really strong and they are all shot like dramas, so they look good. We were just wondering why people don’t really approach the genre from that smarter point of view these days, and so that’s what we tried to accomplish with this script.”
In an entirely different interview, he continued: “When we looked at the landscape of rom-coms over the past decade, it feels like the bar is set really low. There’s a trend where rom-coms have an overly bright aesthetic and the concepts are really silly and the acting isn’t grounded.”
People were, to put it mildly, mad at him. Probably a unique experience for Dave Franco, who must be used to his brother taking the brunt of the public’s anger.
I get people being annoyed with this, because this sort of thing happens all the time in the romance world. Someone who doesn’t write romance (and who, seemingly, hasn’t read a romance novel written in the last twenty years) decides to write their own romance novel, but they’re going to make it good. Not like all those trashy romance novels. This one will be, dare I say, not your mom’s romance novel. But what they’re forgetting when they make these statements is that they’re not just speaking to an audience of romance novel newbies or haters…they’re also speaking to their proposed new audience, the one who loves those “trashy” books. They’re also speaking to the writers of those romance novels, their peers who now think they’re an insufferable, uninformed snob.
So I get it. It’s never a good idea to bust into a new genre by insulting all the work currently being done in it. But Dave Franco’s point, that many current rom-coms aren’t that good…well, could it be at least partially correct? I’d argue that it could. I’m certainly not saying that there aren’t any good rom-coms these days. I enjoy a lot of them! But many of them are made on small budgets and they don’t look very nice. The vast majority of them aren’t casting the genuine movie stars that the rom-coms of our (“our” meaning me and Dave Franco, I guess?) had. And some of them do have silly concepts, if your qualification for a non-silly plot is something realistic and down-to-earth, like When Harry Met Sally (which is really just “they’re friends, should they date?”).
But does Dave Franco think that the people who made those rom-coms started out by saying, “Okay, let’s make some crap!”? Linda Holmes put it best:
Everyone wants to be Nora Ephron. You think I don’t want to write a Nora Ephron worthy book? Of course I do. I aim for that bar every time, and every time I miss it, because only Nora was Nora. The failure of most films to attain rom-com perfection isn’t always for lack of trying.
After that duo of disastrous interviews, life went back to normal. People on Twitter found someone else to complain about. Everyone forgot about Dave Franco and his elevated rom-com.
Until February 2022, when…everyone continued to forget about it, because Somebody I Used to Know came out on Amazon Prime with very little promotion and I heard nary a peep about it from my rom-com loving friends. Perhaps you should’ve timed your controversial interviews to come out closer to your movie’s release date, Dave Franco! But last week I watched it so I could decide, once and for all…was it elevated? Was it smart? Was it “shot like a drama so it looks good” and did it avoid being too bright or too silly? Was it, most importantly because this must be Dave Franco’s favorite word, grounded?
First, let me tell you everything that happens in this movie. Spoilers ahead.
Ally (Alison Brie) works in TV, where she makes a show called Dessert Island that’s a cross between Love Island and Great British Bake Off. But when the show is cancelled, she heads back to her childhood hometown. On the flight there, her cat pukes and poops, and then the puke and the poop end up on her and her seatmates (we call that…elevated). When she gets to her mom’s house, her mom is nowhere to be seen. “Oh no,” I realized one second before my fears were confirmed. “She’s about to walk in on her mom having sex.” Her mom is played by the luminous Julie Hagerty, who really has nothing to do other than have a lot of sex with her boyfriend.
Ally goes to a local bar, where she runs into an old boyfriend, Sean. It’s obvious they have a deep history together, and they spend the entire night in their (German-themed) town partaking in a falling in love montage. They laugh, they flirt, they eat giant pretzels, they puke (again, elevated), and when he drops her off at home in the morning, she kisses him. He’s not into it, but he doesn’t explain why…even though I knew from reading the plot summary that THIS MAN IS ENGAGED! Talk about Men Are Useless Cinema. This man spent an entire montage with his ex-girlfriend without telling her that he has a whole fiancé at home!
Ally finds out about the fiancé when she shows up at his cabin and discovers his entire family there…for the wedding weekend festivities. At first she’s like, “oh no, I have to leave because this is weird.” Which is where the “grounded” portion of this movie ends and we shift into rom-com-ville. Instead of going home and a) assuming this guy is kind of a jerk and b) hanging out with her mom, who keeps asking to see her, she ends up selecting a new, exciting third option and c) becoming their wedding videographer.
It’s important to note that two genuinely great elements of the film introduce themselves in this scene. One is Sean’s brother, played by Haley Joel Osment, and he is truly so funny as a slightly clueless family man bro who thinks he’s the family jokester. His first line when Ally walks in is “Someone call Brendan Fraser because we’ve got a blast from the past!”
And the second is Sean’s best friend, played by Danny Pudi, who feels so funny and natural. Of course, Alison Brie and Danny Pudi worked together on Community, a show that I’ve seen once but that Hollis is constantly in some phase of rewatching (personally I have conflicted feelings about Community, but I can’t deny that it has given me some of my biggest TV laughs ever1). Maybe it’s because they know each other already, but they have way more chemistry than Ally and Sean do. Kind of like how Kristen Stewart and Aubrey Plaza had intense chemistry in Happiest Season, and yet Kristen Stewart ended up with her kinda blah girlfriend (no offense to my beloved Mackenzie Davis). I wonder how this is allowed to happen and why the people in charge can’t just…cast romantic leads who have chemistry. This is by far my biggest problem with contemporary romances—they’re seemingly made with zero regard to whether audiences want to see the leads kiss. Maybe Dave Franco should’ve been focused on chemistry!
Anyway. Ally plans on leaving Sean alone until Danny Pudi tells her that Sean actually came to that bar to find her on purpose when he found out she was in town. That’s right, the man with a fiancé found out via Instagram that The One Who Got Away was in town, left Danny Pudi alone in the middle of a hang session, then showed up at that bar and pretended as if he coincidentally walked in. It’s like the Taylor Swift song Mastermind, except instead of getting a six year relationship with actor Joe Alwyn, he’s getting to ruin his relationship.
Once Ally realizes that Sean purposely found her, she decides they must have a chance, and she vows to do whatever she can to get back with him. She is, in other words, pulling a My Best Friend’s Wedding. To the degree that Sean’s fiancé at one point asks her if she’s going to pull a My Best Friend’s Wedding. One might stop here to consider whether remaking My Best Friend’s Wedding but adding in cat puke jokes is truly elevating the genre. But let’s keep going.
Ally’s “videography” is entirely done on her iPhone. I don’t know why they needed someone who works in TV to record things via iPhone, but whatever. At one point, there’s a subtext laden karaoke scene where Ally sings about the wedding party to the tune of Third Eye Blind’s Semi-Charmed Life. Meanwhile, Sean’s fiancé, Cassidy, is on to Ally. She knows this bitch is up to no good! It is simply not normal to crash your ex-boyfriend’s wedding, even if (especially if?) you get along incredibly well with his family and all his friends are your friends.
I don’t mind unlikeable characters (I’m not watching a movie to find fictional friends), which is good because you’ll probably find yourself thinking that everyone in this movie needs to be single and also move several states away from everyone else. Cassidy should keep touring with her queer punk band that opened for Sleater-Kinney. Ally should move back to LA and get away from Sean because there’s absolutely no way she actually intends to move home and give up her entire career. What would she…do? Of course, this is the point. Ally is flailing a little bit in her career, and instead of taking the time to examine that, she flings herself headfirst into trying to get Sean to fall in love with her.
And that’s an easier prospect than finding career fulfillment, because Sean. Is. Useless. Sean and Ally broke up because she wanted to pursue her career in documentary filmmaking (there’s a giant poster of American Movie in her childhood bedroom…imagine sleeping under the watchful gaze of those two guys every night), while he wanted to stay in their hometown with his family. Now he’s working at his family business, fully entrenched in the town. Which is great! But then why did he pick another girlfriend who has dreams that involve leaving town and/or opening for Sleater-Kinney? He’s just like, “Sure, Cassidy is going to quit her punk band and live with me here and do…hmm, who knows what, but I’m sure she’ll be happy and won’t resent me at all.”
Things come to a head when Ally invites Cassidy’s estranged, homophobic parents to the wedding (Ally!) and Cassidy assumes Sean did it and everyone ends up in a fight. Sean is like, “great, now Ally and I can finally end up together, which seems like an appropriate conversation to be having at my literal wedding venue.”
But Ally tells him she actually wants to go back to LA to work on her show. Sean gets mad. Why does no woman want to stay in Sean’s hometown?? My advice to Sean is this: find a woman who already lives in your hometown. He’s a hot, gainfully employed, non-alcoholic man. Do you know how quickly men like that get snapped up in a small town?
What actually happens is that Ally gives Cassidy some free, unsolicited therapy and then Cassidy kisses her on the mouth (why? Who knows!). And then Sean shows up at Cassidy’s door and is like, “I’m so sorry I wanted you to quit your punk band that opened for Sleater-Kinney. That was all due to my childhood trauma, which I’ve worked through in the last two hours. Please marry me.” Men will literally try to ruin their own wedding instead of going to therapy.
Ally leaves and finds her true career calling: making a documentary about nudists (I’m sorry, naturalists). Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that there’s a lot of nudity in this movie. Sean and Cassidy get married. Everyone’s happy. The end.
I actually enjoyed my experience watching this movie. At no point was it boring, and I laughed quite a few times. No one was really likable and that didn’t bother me. The movie had a broader point about finding fulfillment in yourself versus seeking it through a relationship. The soundtrack is also quite good, with a mix of new songs and some older hidden gems. Somewhere in Los Angeles this February, Cameron Crowe woke up in a cold sweat and managed to sputter out, “Dave Franco…put…Graham Nash…on a soundtrack.”
But did it elevate anything?
In short, no! Dave Franco never should’ve said all that stuff he said, because this was a perfectly fine movie before he insulted every other current movie in the genre and implied that his was better. Also, you can’t simply remake an existing movie from 1997, add in more nudity and cat puke jokes, and consider the genre elevated.
He also makes the mistake that many people do: assuming that because the couple doesn’t end up together, the film is somehow smarter or more subversive than other, simpler romantic comedies, as if he was the first person to consider that a movie could end that way. In reality, that’s the ending to quite a few movies, including the aforementioned My Best Friend’s Wedding and the more recent (500) Days of Summer. Oh yeah, and Annie Hall. This isn’t new!
One of the strangest facets of this is that Alison Brie, who not only costarred but co-wrote the movie, was in a rom-com that fits most of Dave Franco’s requirements. That rom-com was Sleeping with Other People, and while I know it’s divisive, it didn’t have an “overly bright aesthetic,” it wasn’t silly, the acting was grounded, and the couple actually had chemistry. I bought Alison Brie and Jason Sudekis as a couple.
Dave Franco wasn’t wrong in saying that the current rom-com landscape is bleak. I hate to say this, but at this point I don’t even watch a lot of the romantic comedies coming out. I no longer get excited at an announcement of a new film. People have been talking about the “rom-com renaissance” since at least 2019, and I’m just not sure it’s really happening. I can’t even trust the recommendations I see online, because I’ve been burned too many times before. No one would be happier than me if there really was a resurgence of well-made, well-written romantic comedies. I’m like the meme of the guy at the “change my mind” table. I would love to be proven wrong.
While I haven’t yet found a film that hits that exact sweet spot of a 90’s rom-com, there have been quite a few movies in recent years that are grounded, that aren’t silly, and that (perhaps most important!) actually have couples with chemistry, which is more than Dave Franco can say about his movie. Here are my picks:
-The Broken Hearts Gallery. This may be controversial, but I love Dacre Montgomery as a romantic lead. He is weird and I like that. He and Geraldine Viswanathan have chemistry and this movie is genuinely fun.
-I Want You Back. This movie isn’t sexy in the least (the leads never even kiss!) but what it does have is strong friend chemistry, much in the way When Harry Met Sally made you believe that Harry and Sally knew each other deeply.
-Plus One. Again, CHEMISTRY. I love Maya Erskine and Jack Quaid together. And there’s no big, silly plot contrivance here.
-Isn’t It Romantic. Sometimes I feel like the only person on earth who liked this movie. I think this might be the actual film Dave Franco was complaining about, but guess what? I thought it was fun! And it made me believe in Adam DeVine as a romantic lead, something I never thought possible.
There are more rom-coms I like, but this is way too long already and I have to clean my house, so we’ll leave it here. In short, Somebody I Used to Know is a perfectly enjoyable movie and I had a good time watching it. But did it elevate the genre? No.
Next week, it’s a monthly roundup for paid subscribers. Although most of my posts are free, this is the one monthly post that’s behind a paywall. If you want to know what I’ve been watching with my new PBS subscription and which Food Network show has bewitched my entire family, you can subscribe here.
Do you want to see a clip from Community that makes me laugh every single time I watch it? I think you have to have watched the entire show, understand the characters, realize that the scenes in this montage were never in the actual show, etc. to find this funny, but I do. I do find it funny.