The 40-Year-Old-Virgin has been a hard act to follow. The film which launched Steve Carell into the public consciousness is arguably Judd Apatow’s best film – an opinion often shared by audiences and critics alike. What made it so good was its ability to simultaneously juggle being both a raunchy, adult comedy as well as being a film that says something relevant about relationships. The result was a truly authentic movie which resonated with people of all ages.
It’s “been a hard act to follow” because it seems that many films made since then (Apatow’s included) have tried to recreate that magic, to no avail. Jason Segel-catapulting, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, probably comes the closest. She’s Out of My League tries its damndest to follow suit, but unfortunately, all we get is an unfunny, Frankenstein-like mess of raunch meets innocent romantic comedy.
Kirk (Jay Baruchel) is a regular guy whom his friends describe as a “5” (on the famous 10-point scale of hotness). When Molly (Alice Eve), a “hard 10”, begins flirting with, and subsequently asking out, Kirk, the story follows the adventures of what would happen if a ‘10’ went for a ‘5’. Of course, what’s funny about this premise is that pretty much every romantic comedy stars some guy ‘5’ ending up with a ‘10’ girl, but let’s just pretend like this movie was the first to come up with the idea and move on.
As mentioned before, the film ends up being a strange hybrid of inconsistent moods and theme. One scene is a sweet moment of Kirk revealing his insecurity to Molly, the next is a scene of Kirk’s friend shaving his testicles for him (don’t ask – it didn’t really make sense even in the context of the movie). This split personality of tone is the movie’s main downfall, because if it had simply picked a direction and ran with it, it might have ended up being much better. One might say, watchable.
As it is, the writing isn’t exactly able to carry the film and the movie is only held together by Baruchel’s charm. He’s a solid actor who is great in other films, but he simply doesn’t have the right script this time around to really break out. Putting him at the helm of a better movie will, no doubt, really kick start this guy’s career. Eve is certainly charming enough as Molly. Usually in these sorts of movies, the “hot girl” is just a laughing sidekick to the main “funny guy” – a sounding board for him to bounce his jokes off of, essentially. It’s nice to see that her character is written to be the smartest person in the room and not just a pretty face.
However, despite all that collective charm, the supposed chemistry between these two characters is just not believable. Every scene where they make out, or do anything besides banter back and forth, was just…creepy. Maybe it’s just hard for me to make the leap that any woman would find neurotic twitchiness to be a turn-on, but then again, Woody Allen has been making movies for years.
In the end, She’s Out of My League tries to be too many styles of comedy, and consequently, succeeds at none. Molly may be a solid 10, but this film is nowhere near that.
