Movie Review - I Want You Back

Director: Jason Orley
Genre: Comedy/ Romance
Runtime: 116 minutes
Year: 2022
Starring: Jenny Slate, Charlie Day, Scott Eastwood, Gina Rodriguez, Clark Backo, Manny Jacinto
 
Description: Newly dumped thirty-somethings Peter (Charlie Day) and Emma (Jenny Slate) team up to sabotage their exes new relationships and win them back for good.

Review: Director Jason Orley focuses on thirty-somethings, but it feels like a coming-of-age film. After Emma and Peter are both dumped by their partners, they hatch a plan to get their lovers back. While Emma will seduce Peter’s ex Anne’s new boyfriend, Peter becomes friends with Emma’s ex Noah and persuade him to break up his new relationship. A recipe for funny moments about people who have to learn to let go and look for what really suits them.

The casting of the characters is perfect. Emma is a funny, chaotic person who does not yet have her life in order, or in other words not someone you can build on according to ex-boyfriend Noah. Jenny Slate throws herself confidently into her role and despite her over-the-top moments, where she dramatically burst into tears, for example, she still feels very human.

Peter, on the other hand, is dumped by Anne because he is too lacking in spontaneity and she feels she cannot move forwards. Charlie Day fits right into the more passive role in which he is not so much funny himself as the situations he repeatedly finds himself in. His naïve, adorable appearance further enhances the humor.

Not only Emma and Peter come off well. Certainly Noah in some ways conforms to the stereotypes of the typical handsome man, but at the same time the film plays with expectations and manages to surprise. This does not mean that everyone gets a distinct personality. Noah and Anne’s new partners have little to do, and Emma’s roommates are there purely for comic relief. But the relationship between the characters work.

The pace is nice and the dialogues and awkward situations manage to make you laugh. It is also nice that the characters’ behavior does not simply lead to a happy ending. For however understandable, Emma and Peter’s plan is obviously dubious.

Without getting preachy, “I Want You Back” manages to convey well the life lesson the characters learn. And while the film never makes the characters unsympathetic, it is certainly aware of their lesser sides. That the film never goes over the top is due to the enjoyable cast, but also by never letting the exes become simple stereotypes. This gives the film just that little bit more.   

I’m not the world’s biggest romcom fan, but there is always at least one every year that pleasantly surprises me and I actually like. “I Want You Back” is the one this year.

Rating: 3,5/ 5