MOVIE REVIEW: ‘They Came Together’

June 27th, 2014

Kevin Blumeyer

Film: They Came Together
Directed by: David Wain
Written By: David Wain, Michael Showalter
Starring: Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler, Bill Hader

As film theory would have it, every genre goes through four stages: Primitive, Classical, Parodic and Revisionist. In the case of the romantic comedy, by my estimation, we’ve completed this cycle twice. The first cycle began with some of the genre’s early classics, from It Happened One Night to The Apartment, before Woody Allen turned the genre on its head with Annie Hall.

More recently, the genre enjoyed a second golden age with films like Sleepless in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally… providing the blueprint for countless rom-coms throughout the ’90s and 2000s, before revisionist takes on the genre ((500) Days of Summer, Crazy, Stupid, Love., etc.) began taking over.

You’ll notice that in both cases, I skipped over the Parodic stage. That’s because, to this point, the genre hasn’t had its Airplane! or Young Frankenstein. And clearly, after watching They Came Together, it still hasn’t.

They Came Together reunites the Wet Hot American Summer tandem of writer/director David Wain and co-writer Michael Showalter. Much of the cast of Wet Hot is present as well, including leads Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler. Rudd and Poehler tell the story of their relationship to another couple (Bill Hader and Ellie Kemper), who quickly realize they’re getting a little more than they bargained for as the ensuing flashbacks comprise an 80-minute send-up to the romantic comedy genre and the various tropes and contrivances we’ve seen time and time again over the years.

They Came Together is at its most clever when leaning more on the side of subtlety. The film’s best joke is a running gag about the film’s “third main character,” New York City. Rudd and Poehler introduce their story as one that could take place “only in New York,” yet, as is typically the case with these films, it’s a story that could have taken place just about anywhere. The film has success while working inside the same inoffensive PG-13 mode as the films it’s satirizing, taking advantage of the considerable wit and charm of its leads.

And yet, Wain and Showalter deem it necessary to wedge in a bunch of lazy, vulgar- I guess they’re technically jokes, but they have no punchline or payoff. There’s a scene where Rudd tells his grandmother he wants to fuck her. Why? I’m not quite sure. There was no other joke attached to that line. Just, “grandma, I want to fuck you.” Crickets. End scene.

The film plays like an extended SNL skit that was produced for HBO, thus making it mandatory to insert a bunch of gratuitous sex and f-bombs. If David Wain has gained a cult following as a comic genius of sorts, then why do the majority of the jokes in They Came Together feel like they could have been written by just about anyone? And by anyone, I mean any number of Wayans brothers.

Aside from the film’s humor being too obvious and, well, simply not funny, perhaps the film’s biggest problem is that it comes about a decade too late. Had it come out ten years ago, just after Sweet Home Alabama and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days were massive hits at the box office, the joke would have been a lot more fresh and more people would have been in on it. Instead, we get a film that’s really reacting to nothing. I mean, what was the last “big” romantic comedy? The Proposal? That was five years ago.

Today’s female moviegoers are smarter and demand more out of their films and characters. Bridesmaids have taken over the girls night out. The Hunger Games and Thor are the new date movie. The romantic comedy as we know it is over, and David Wain is apparently the only person who doesn’t already know this. Jennifer Aniston doesn’t even make them anymore. Talk about beating a dead horse.

Even if They Came Together had its shit together, I’m not sure the romantic comedy is even spoofable. Young Frankenstein and Spaceballs worked because people took the movies they were spoofing seriously. Even the best romantic comedies are best served as guilty pleasures, sick day fodder or Sunday morning background noise for sleeping off a hangover. People understand how phony and cloying they are, and we don’t need They Came Together to point this out.

If you want to do something clever and innovative within the rom-com genre, try making one about people who aren’t just another pair of good looking white middle-class Americans. It worked for Think Like A Man. Make a romantic comedy about people with real problems. Hell, make a romantic comedy so good that people don’t realize they’re watching a romantic comedy. David O. Russell wins Oscars for that shit.