#as soon as i edit all these fuckin screenshots its over for your dash sorry besties

[headgehug]

my little "i want you back" review :P

Oh, boy. Big time spoilers and TMI below the cut!

So, I finished the credits, rubbed my face dry, and took my dog on a nice long walk, and pointedly ignored my screenshots folder after seeing the little number indicating how many items had been added during the last two hours. Also, thank you guys for making me feel very much like a media journalist right now– is this what blogging is supposed to be?!

Let me start out by saying that I don’t usually like/watch romcoms, or if I end up watching one, I pay a lot more attention to the side plots than the main one because it generally bores me, it’s cliche, I get major secondhand embarrassment, etc. So, all of my opinions should be taken with a) a grain of salt, because I don’t know what I’m talking about, and b) the knowledge that I’m a huge hypocrite for loving this movie when, if I had been less excited about it, I probably wouldn’t be giving it another thought.

So, acting first? Jenny Slate killed it, oh my god! It felt real, I felt so immersed, everything she did I was like, damn, same girl. I did not realize Manny Jacinto was Jason on The Good Place until I heard his voice, he was so good in this too! He didn’t feel like your basic throwaway comedic relief character, he felt fleshed out, he had his own little growth plotline, I loved it. Did you even do Little Shop of Horrors in high school? Speaking of that– OMG! Jenny doing Suddenly Seymour, well suddenly I need her to be in a remake of that, like, now. Charlie Day, I mean, I can’t tell if I’m being lenient because I like him or too harsh because I like him and want to be objective, and maybe it was just the writing, but some parts didn’t seem too natural, I don’t know. I think I’m being a little too critical actually, he was great I think and his expressions were so good, really nice to have two leads where both draw you in completely. Despite being primarily a comedic actor, he's just got the face and persona for romance, come on. Especially now, he's just such a beautiful, emotional romantic lead. Mwah.

Fashion/costuming next, because this is the best place to sneak it in before the rest of this long ass thought piece. Oh my god! So good! So modern and sleek but also classic and cute and snazzy! I’ll have to do a separate post just about the outfits because honestly I want everyone’s wardrobe from this, like I would wear everything the six main characters wore. Ugh. Gorgeous.

Writing now? I think I will ultimately blame any disappointment I felt with Charlie’s character on the plotline, it was the “funny, upbeat” counterpoint to Emma’s plotline. Made me cringe a little bit but that’s just because watching drunk people be stupid makes me do that. I also don’t really feel the need to point out what parts I didn’t think were all that funny and/or were a little overdone or unnecessary as far as jokes, cause at the end of the day it didn’t bug me that much. I thought Jase was hilarious and his background wheedling combined with Peter hyping himself up to jump really made me laugh. Like I said before, I don’t watch a lot of romcoms, so I don’t have much to compare this to as far as being super basic? I thought it was a cool storyline, it was generally predictable, it made you cry and laugh and hold your breath in all the right spots. I’m particularly fond of the very very end, if not so fond of the very cringe stuff leading up to it, on the boat. Not saying the writing was bad– just that I got maaajor secondhand embarrassment (which is fine, that’s another feeling and feelings are good. Do you remember feelings, Mac?)

Skip this paragraph if you want to know as little about me as possible <3 Oh boy, did this movie make me cry and not just because I’m a sappy fucking romantic! I’ve got those pushing people away so I don’t have to talk to them tendencies that angsty middle schoolers have! I’m at a job where I could easily stay the rest of my career if I so desired and wanted to end up like my manager who gets walked all over for a living! I’m ending a relationship with someone who never pushed me to be better and only shallowly supported me when I got the guts to try to do it on my own (there are other issues with that situation but I’m grossly simplifying it for ~the impact~). So yeah all of those things kind of made me go “Aw, shit, that’s me.” and bawl my eyes out.

(back to generally relatable and not hyper specific analyses!) While Peter just up and abandoning Emma (receptionist solidarity hell yeah girlie) made me want to deck him and made me just sit there in horror for a fair bit of the movie after that, I get it. It is so easy and desirable to fall back into what’s comfortable because it’s what you thought the ideal was, because it’s safe and it’s simple and it’s the known. Even if you know you're hurting other people (and yourself) because of it. So while he really pissed me off for doing that, I think, from a writing standpoint, from a realism standpoint, it made more sense than him going full spontaneous romantic– because whatever growth he had undergone at that point, that’s not the sort of person he is, and that’s okay. That being said, he certainly doesn’t inherently deserve Emma by the end of the movie– absolutely not (yet- he would/will, if he puts in the work, cause neither of them were perfect, so now's their time to grow and be better together), and I was rooting for her big time with getting her own life on track and pursuing her dreams on her own, without desperately running after a partner. But, it is a romantic movie, so I’m super duper happy about the ending, even though it’s a sickly sweet gag inducing cheesy as all hell callback to an earlier part of the movie that made me cringe and feel all warm and happy inside. And I think that’s what this genre is supposed to do, right?! I love that it’s open ended, I love that there’s a million different ways it could go after that, because that’s real life. And because this is fiction and not real life, obviously they work it out and fall madly in love, slowly and messily, and live happily ever after. :P

Anyways, thank you so much if you’ve read this far, let me know all of your comments and responses and senseless ramblings! By the way guys, that leading guy was like really cute… anybody know who he is?