A light and lean romantic comedy ? or a coming of age dramatic romance (take your pick) ? there?s something appealing about the candid naturalism of Lee Toland Krieger?s Celeste and Jesse Forever, even if your age or disposition will like determine whether you see it as ?smart-minded sugar coat? or ?indulgent, pedantic crock.? I leaned towards the later, so distracted as I was not only by Andy Samberg?s ever-protruding chin (it really is a magnificent chin), but also by how depressingly slight life and life?s big choices come across in the film. But hey, maybe that?s life.
The film revolves a married couple, Celeste (Rashida Jones) and Jesse (Samberg), who remain best friends despite the fact that Celeste?s requirements for the ideal husband have shifted (evolved?) since they tied the knot back during a collegiate hangover. Now Jesse is an aimless 20-something male pushing the big Three-O, and Celeste is a striving authority on pop culture, who runs her own firm with her gay buddy, Scott (Elijah Wood). The point is this, Celeste and Jesse have a natural rapport, but their relationship is puerile, best encapsulated in a little recurring dirty joke, the couple pretending to masturbate the lip gloss, complete with When Harry Met Sally sound effects. It?s not the raunch that made me want to vomit; it?s how obnoxiously cutesy it all is.
Celeste ditches Jesse via an amicable divorce but soon discovers her heart more conflicted than she had expected. Meanwhile, Jesse discovers he has to move on, reluctantly at first, but then life gives him a solid nudge in the form of a girl he knocks up. What is at stake is their happiness and the fear that they have made a decision that will play out for the rest of their lives in the form of regret.
In the screening I attended (filled with sour-faced critics, mind you), the first hour of Celeste and Jesse Forever?s attempts at humor bombed worse than Carrot Top at a military funeral. I suspect a generational divide at play, and Generation-Zuckerberg might find all this half-sexed shtick and dizzy-headed angst relatable and funny. But as relationship dramas go, Celeste and Jesse Forever does possess the welcomed residue of lived life, and its naturalistic style lends the film a warmth, despite the pristine-pretty pop album cover cinematography. In the end, the movie?s overall quality is probably related to what genre of film you want to take it as. For a romantic comedy, it is surprisingly sensitive and candid. As a romantic drama, it feels, like any floundering post-grad, a little flat and undernourished.
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