Rex Reed Did Not Get David Wain's They Came Together
Rex Reed, critic seemingly created for the sole purpose of blog posts, recently saw and reviewed David Wain's new rom-com parody They Came Together. He did not like it! Or, it seems, understand what it was! Though he asserts the fact that the movie is a spoof at the top of his review, he appears to then...forget?
He begins his 0/4 star review by explaining the film's conceit:
The entire movie is told over a boring dinner as they attempt to recreate their interminable, cliché-riddled story for another couple (TV veterans Bill Hader and Ellie Kemper).
"They" are Molly and Joel, played by Amy Poehler and Paul Rudd. Joel is non-threatening, handsome, and vaguely Jewish. Molly, he explains, quoting Joel, is "the kind of cute, klutzy girl that can drive you a little bit crazy." Reed continues:
To prove his point, there's a madly contrived flashback to one of their earliest dates for coffee. "I'll have a low-fat sugar-free banana yogurt muffin," she says, "but if they don't have that, I'll have half a poppy seed muffin. They can take out the poppy seeds and heat it up. If they can't heat it up, then leave half the poppy seeds in and sprinkle the other half of the poppy seeds on half of a blueberry muffin and then cut both halves in half and throw them both away. In either scenario, I want a lemon chocolate loaf, but it must be shrink-wrapped and more importantly, it must smell more like lemon than chocolate."
Instead of doing what most sane people would do and run for the exit, Joel craves more self-abuse.
Later, Reed describes another plot point he found a bit hack:
Molly owns a small, whimsical candy shop, unaware that Joel is a corporate raider assigned to close her down to make room for a big super store across the street that will run her out of business. But the beat goes on in a frantic attempt to stretch a 60-second idea hatched in a routine Monday morning Hollywood conference-room barnstorming session into an 83-minute movie that goes nowhere.
And another:
They slog their way through the typical New York falling-in-love montage—rolling in the autumn leaves, juggling oranges, playing touch football in Central Park.
Finally throwing his hands in the air:
Joel goes back to his ex-girlfriend (Cobie Smulders, from The L Word and the abominable How I Met Your Mother), then when he dumps her, she humiliates him by confessing that she faked all of her own orgasms. "You and I are like rain-proofing on a wooden deck—finished!" Say that again? "I'm not who you think I am," she taunts, and then turns into—are you ready?—Judge Judy! I mean, are these people from another planet? Nobody says anything like real people actually talk.
In closing, Reed says They Came Together—again, a rom-com parody from the director and writing team behind Wet Hot American Summer, which boasts on its poster, "PLEASE NOTE: NEW YORK CITY PLAYS SUCH A CENTRAL ROLE IN THIS STORY, IT IS ALMOST LIKE ANOTHER CHARACTER IN THE MOVIE"—compiles "every cliché you've ever seen in every stale TV sitcom since the invention of sound" and is as "fresh, witty and clever as a Howdy Doody monologue."
Ugh, fine, Mr. Reed. Will the movie at least be shown on airplanes?
This movie will never be shown on airplanes.