Well, it’s February, a month we mostly connect with Valentine’s Day. So for the next few weeks I’ll be defending a few poorly reviewed rom-coms. This week’s romantic comedy was released in 2005 and currently holds a 42% freshness on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s a familiar Christmas themed rom-com called Just Friends.
Just Friends tells the story of Chris Brander, a successful record producer living in Los Angeles. When he was in High School he was an overweight kid in love with his best friend Jamie. After an embarrassing graduation party, Chris moved from Jersey to Los Angeles and never came back. Until one day his plane to Paris is forced to land with his newest client (and former girlfriend) Samantha James. While in Jersey, he’s forced to face old demons. Once again Chris tries to get out of the friend zone, while Jamie starts to fall for the formerly geeky Dusty Dinkleman.
What makes Just Friends work is that almost every guy can relate to the friend-zone concept. Even the world’s biggest ladies man has experienced the pain of rejection at least once in their life. Ryan Reynolds is at his most believable in the beginning of the film as the overweight version of himself. He’s funny, pathetic and charming but none of it ever seems forced.
Amy Smart is as beautiful as ever in this film. While watching this I realized how rarely I’ve seen her in movies lately (outside of Crank 1 & 2 of course). It’s not hard to see how anyone could fall head over heels for her.
The film works best when it’s over the top. This mostly means anything involving Chris Klein’s performance of Dusty Dinkleman, the perfect boyfriend. Be it in the beginning when he’s attempting to perform a song but gets too nervous to get past the first few notes or later in the film when he’s playing Christmas carols like he’s Yngwie Maimsteen, he creates a much needed sense of surrealism to this film.
Anna Faris’ performance of Samantha James, the ex-girlfriend from hell, is a mix of hilarious, annoying and terrifying. A direct inspiration of pop-star train wrecks like Britney Spears, she represents the way we see the young pop-star who gets whatever they want. She’s obsessed with public opinion, things going her way and her ‘vegetarianism’.
But the real star of the movie comes from Chris Marquette’s brilliant performance of Mike, Chris’ younger brother. Mike is lovable and funny but still slightly evil, mostly thinking about himself and his desire to have sex.
All these elements build towards what you want the most out of a romantic comedy. You want likable characters, you want a happy ending, you want to relate to the movie and most importantly you want to laugh. Just Friends does all those things, it even kicks the movie off with one of the funniest openings in Rom-Com history.
Never has lip-syncing been so funny and so depressingly relatable (for me at least, but I refuse to believe I’m alone in this). At the end of the day, Rom-Com’s are almost always a black sheep with critics (not unlike slasher movies). If you hate romantic comedies, this movie won’t change your opinion, but if you’re a fan, you will love this film and probably be surprised by it.
When not watching shitty romantic comedies Matt Kelly is hosting the Saint Mort Show (this week’s episode features Mitch Donaberger, Kyle K and Sonal Shah of Scrubs Fame) as well as tweets and writes in his blog Pure Mattitude.