This movie isn’t playing in a lot of theaters yet, and
my parents haven’t heard of it – so… drum roll please… It has the honor of
being my first Obscure Movie of the Week (seriously think a little tune when you read that phrase, it makes it so much more awesome) review!
Let’s get one thing out of the way first – who’s name is Celeste?
I’ve never met a Celeste. Have any of you ever met a Celeste? I mean I guess
the odds are a lot better when you ask a large group of people that ONE of them
will have met a Celeste, but let’s be real – could they have picked a more
hipster name? And what doesn’t even make sense is that when she (Celeste) was born, being
a hipster wasn’t even cool yet, so why would her parents have named her a
hipster name? Wait. Does that mean that I don’t make sense or that the movie
doesn’t? Still… Celeste… grimace
Moving on to the part of this thing where I actually
critique the film and not the strange choice of name for one of the title
characters. This was one of those movies that I had a hard time forming an
opinion on. It felt cool. As I was watching it, I was thinking, “I’m probably
pretty hip for watching this movie right now.” I imagine people in LA will line
up for this movie for blocks and blocks and drink their juice cleansing diet drink things and
talk about the latest exercise class that they took that combines zumba and
push-up and none of them will even make a joke about how that could be called
Pumba like from The Lion King. I’m
afraid I’ve gotten sidetracked again; but, the point is, this may just be an LA
sort of movie. I have nothing (not a lot anyway) against LA, but I do think
that generally movies should appeal to more than one geographic area’s
population.
This movie has the right ingredients. I like Andy Samberg. I
like Rashida Jones. Heck, I like the trailer. But, after you watch these two
friends for two hours, you don’t really like them anymore. I appreciate that
it’s trying to explore a modern relationship – friends who get married who are
better off friends. As the girl code demands of me, I think that guys and girls
can be friends. But, this movie makes me question the girl code. It doesn’t
make sense. How could they have been married and neither of them had any hurt
feelings when they got divorced? There is love for a friend and there is being
in love, and if they were in love, wouldn’t it hurt to… I don’t know, not be in
love anymore or be rejected by someone you’re in love with? This is going off
into a whole philosophical realm that I don’t like to spend much time in; but
basically, I think the effort to show a relationship that is current and common
turned into showing a relationship that doesn’t exist and doesn’t make sense.
A lot of the humor and the dialogue is very funny, and it
feels very of-the-moment. I’ll give it that. Emma Roberts, who has a smaller
role, is even a bit of a breath of fresh air. She seems to be one of the only
characters who has emotions. They’re highly dramatic emotions, but maybe that’s
what makes her stand out – that she’s not of the older MTV generation that feel no highs or lows and makes everything into a joke. I desperately wanted to like Elijah Wood, but alas, who
the heck was his character supposed to be? Every time he comes on screen I hold
my breath and hope for hilarity, but I’m always left confused.
Overall, wait for Netflix.
