Celeste and Jesse Forever

First Hit:  Earnest at times while failing to state the obvious at other times. In the end it left me wanting something with more growth and substance.

This is a film about a couple who are best friends but weren’t willing to really work on making their romantic relationship work.

One of the best lines from the film, and I’m paraphrasing here, came from one of Celeste’s (played by Rashida Jones) clients, a pop star named Riley (played by Emma Roberts), “you are contempt towards people without doing any homework or knowing anything about them.”

This perfectly captured Celeste’s attitude in the film, which I disliked about her character. She was self-righteous and right. She was oblivious to the truth about her and others. Her codependent partner Jesse (played by Andy Samberg) lived in a studio behind the house they once lived in together.

His character was like a lost little boy who depended on his strong former wife to maintain him. Their friends didn’t like how they were together and actually I thought it was unreal and their private games together, like masturbating a small tube of lip-balm or baby corn was OK maybe once, but multiple times?

There were moments in this film where the point for making this film was going to stand tall, only to be dragged down by self-indulgence of the characters.

There is a good film in the subject matter, couples have to work on their friendship in a romantic relationship and vice versa, but the inconsistency of this effort mimicked my dislike for each of the characters or actors, I don’t know which.

Jones felt self-absorbed and self-righteous both as a person and character. Samberg was too weak to be the second lead. Roberts was very good as Riley the pop-star. Ari Graynor as the couple's friend Beth, did well to show and hold her contempt for Celeste and Jesse while balancing with her love for them. I also liked Rebecca Dayan as Veronica the woman who was attempting to let Jesse grow up. Her quite demeanor was one of acceptance. Jones and Will McCormack (who also was a character in the film) wrote a script that required some subtlety and balance in the characters. Lee Toland Krieger directed this mediocre film.

Overall: This film could have said a lot more than it did about the importance of couples nurturing a friendship and each other as people while embracing romance.

I Love You, Man

First Hit: There are some funny bits in this film along with some good serious truthful moments; however it felt long, repetitious, and overdone in parts.

Paul Rudd plays Peter Klaven a moderately successful real estate agent who has a dream of building a group of homes and stores on a bluff near downtown LA.

To finance this venture he must sell Lou Ferrigno’s home for which he has the exclusive listing. He is engaged to Zooey (played by Rashida Jones) who feels like she has hit the jackpot with Paul as her boyfriend.

As a boyfriend, Peter is thoughtful, kind, considerate, and pays attention to her. All her girlfriends think she’s so lucky but there is an underlying concern; Peter doesn't have any guy friends. The fact is that Peter doesn’t is the gist of the film. He and his fiancé decide that he needs to find some guy friends before the wedding or else the wedding party will be uneven.

In his quest to find a guy friend, he has a number of man dates. There are funny bits in some of these encounters. Then during an open house he is having for Lou’s home, he runs into Sydney (played by Jason Segel) who is blunt, insightful, and outspoken. They hit it off because in many ways they are opposite and they both love the band Rush.

Through a series of man dates, their relationship expands and eventually he asks Sydney to be his best man. However, Zooey doesn’t like that Peter is less available and pays less attention to her now that he has a guy friend to hang out with.

I found the repetition of scenes, like Peter attempting to come up with a nick name for Sydney, to be tiring and overplayed. The direction of the unevenness and the upsides of this film the responsibility of Director John Hamburg and co-writer Larry Levin. Rudd was OK as Peter; while Segel was the strongest consistent character as Sydney. I found the couple Jon Favreau and Jaime Pressly as Zooey’s best friend and husband, to be overplayed, unrealistic, and boorish.

Overall: This film’s unevenness took away from the truly funny parts and in the end, this film felt very long. It might have been better to cut 20 minutes from it by reducing extraneous and repetitive scenes.