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Somebody_I_Used_To_Know.jpeg

'Somebody I Used to Know' Is Not What You Expect

By Dustin Rowles | Film | March 3, 2023 |

By Dustin Rowles | Film | March 3, 2023 |


Somebody_I_Used_To_Know.jpeg

Because podcasts are the new late night tv, and Maron is the new Letterman, Dax is the new Leno, and Conan is the new … Conan, I’ve heard Dave Franco promote his Amazon movie Somebody I Used to Know in a few places now. The thing that Franco always stresses about the romantic comedy — which he directs and co-wrote with his wife, Alison Brie, who also stars — is that it takes an unexpected turn. The template is My Best Friend’s Wedding, except that Ally (Brie) — the producer of a cooking competition series who returns home for the first time in a decade and reconnects with an ex, Sean (Jay Ellis), who is about to marry Cassidy (Kiersey Clemons) — does not make the same choices as Julia Roberts.

Franco stressed the unexpected twist so often that I was beginning to think that the director of The Rental was going to take an unexpected Jordan Peele-like twist midway through the film. That does not happen. Somebody I Used to Know does not change genres, but it does go into a believably unexpected place.

When Ally returns to her hometown, her show has been canceled and she’s at something of a crossroads. Sean, meanwhile, intentionally seeks her out despite his impending nuptials because he is feeling some uncertainty. Ally dumped him a decade prior to pursue her career, and he is concerned that Cassidy — the lead singer of a punk rock band — will decide to do the same. Cassidy is also having some cold feet about giving up her band to settle down in Sean’s charming but insular hometown. Cassidy is exactly where Ally was with Sean a decade prior.

That’s the baking soda and vinegar, and Brie’s Community co-star Danny Pudi is here to shake it up in the scene-stealing Rupert Everett role. I have enjoyed Pudi in Community, Powerless, and Mythic Quest, but I love that he finally gets to play an emotionally-driven character, essentially the gay best friend. Haley Joel Osment steals a couple of scenes as well as the doofus brother-in-law, while Julie Hagerty is wonderful as Ally’s mom and Olga Merediz is likewise as Sean’s mom.

To be honest: I love romcoms, but I didn’t really want to like this one. Dave Franco plays annoying douchebags on TV, and he’s already married to Alison Brie, does he need to be a good director, too? But after this, and the surprisingly excellent The Rental (revisit now that you love Jeremy Allen White), Franco is legit. He’s two for two, and Brie is great in both of them — it’s almost like she wrote a role for herself to suit her strengths. Jay Ellis, like his Insecure character, is charming and too good to be true; Clemons illustrates that she should be in more romantic comedies; and Pudi is the glue that holds it all together.

Romcoms have been surfacing again in recent years, but they’re mostly of the big studio variety (Ticket to Paradise, The Lost City), so it’s genuinely nice to see a good indie romcom that gently subverts but does not try to reinvent the genre. It’s a solid date movie, and that’s just not something the marketplace offers much of anymore.