A Case of You

"You could become the man of her dreams if you wanted to." Sam (Long) is a struggling writer who has a crush on Birdie (Wood), the barista at the coffee place he frequents. He has no idea how to approach her until his friend brings up the idea of looking at her Facebook profile. Sam studies what he sees and becomes everything she is looking for. When she begins to fall for him Sam rethinks his choices. I am really becoming a Justin Long fan. In every movie he is in he is very easy to like and very funny. After the amazing Best Man Down movie I was looking forward to seeing this. While this wasn't as good as that one this was still very enjoyable. What could have been a generic cookie cutter romantic comedy was changed just enough to make it interesting and fun to watch. The best part was that it wasn't 100% predictable, more like 90% but still... The movie is more or less about a non-creepy (not totally at least) stalker who gets the girl by not being himself. It had the possibility of being totally creepy and borderline scary but the performances and the writing made it sweet and funny. I did like this quite a bit and recommend it. Overall, the sweetest and least creepy stalker movie I have ever seen. I give this a B+.

As I've stated before, there's nothing worse in life than (a) a wasted talent and (b) a wasted opportunity on film and, unfortunately, A Case of You is a misstep in what could've resulted in a film with a strong commentary on our over-connected society. Its issue right off the bat is it takes an idea that isn't really romantic and makes it the subject of a romantic comedy. The idea of a man using a woman's social networking profile (a woman he just met, mind you) to make an attempt to model himself after a man who likes the same music as she does, the same books, and the same activities so he can come to have a chance with her.

This movie shows qualities of a man I'm sure few women appreciate: disingenuous behavior, dishonesty, possible invasion of privacy, etc. Not exactly the traits you'd want to find in your significant other. Let me offer a question to the girls that enjoyed this film, what if you current or future significant other did the same thing that the lead male character in A Case of You to you? Would you still find his qualities ones to relish and his character worthy enough to date? The man in question is Sam (Justin Long), an ambitious writer confined to the uninspired job of penning the novelizations to hit movies (confession: I collected those like antique comics as a child). The female he falls for is Birdie (Evan Rachel Wood), a barista he meets one day who is subsequently fired the following day. Sam then asks the flirtatious, presumably homosexual dwarf who works there (Peter Dinklage in the kind of role he should avoid if he wants to try and break any stereotypes) about her to which he provides her last name, leaving Sam's option to go from socializing to social-networking.

Both Long and Wood give adequate performances because their charisma as actors rarely allows them to do otherwise. Since both actors have started, each have taken a wide-variety of roles, Wood especially, whose riveting performance in Catherine Hardwicke's Thirteen as a delinquent teen I'll never forget. However, it is Long's character who is unlikable in the picture, one of the only movies next to his film Taking Chances a few years back that I recall not being fond of his character. Long's character, for starters, is one of the writer-types that likes to write three to five sentence before deleting them in disgust. Furthermore, he's also the kind of person in a romantic comedy that has the gall to get angry at the girl for liking the person he pretends to be rather than the person he really is.

This is where my optimism and likability for Long's character went out the window. Here's a guy who fakes his entire personality for this woman and convinces her everything she likes and dislikes mirrors his personal likes and dislikes before getting mad at her for not having anything else to talk about besides her specific tastes. To put that in some perspective, that'd be like if I was a filmmaker and mentioned a movie not my own that I really loved and enjoyed to my girlfriend. Say we talked about it for a long while. Trying to follow the abrupt change in emotions portrayed in A Case of You, it'd be like after fifteen minutes of discussing the film I got mad at my girlfriend for not mentioning my movie.

Cameos are littered in the movie, including Sam's pest of a boss played by Vince Vaughn, Brendan Fraser in questionably necessary role, and Sam Rockwell as a guitar teacher who is called by Sam once he learns Birdie finds nothing sexier than a man who can play guitar. It's depressing to note that Rockwell's performance here is shockingly unfunny and so over-the-top and out of place in the film that it's a blessing he's only in one scene. Never again do I want to say such a thing about Rockwell.

The film wants to make a case for the unhealthy qualities that arouse when there is a bias or larger focus on one person in a relationship, but by the third act, when the problem is recognized, it's hard to have any sympathy for the lead character since he brought it all upon himself. The only sympathy one can have is for Wood's character, who is just sucked into this mess by an insincere man wearing sincere clothing. Director Kat Coiro seems to understand human relationships, given her tract record of short films and feature-length films concerning love, personal struggles, and dating, but Coiro seems to make A Case of You into a case for background checks and further research on people's life partners.

Starring: Justin Long, Evan Rachel Wood, Vince Vaughn, Sam Rockwell, Brendan Fraser, and Peter Dinklage. Directed by: Kat Coiro.

A reviewer said that our protagonist was basing his interest in the girl solely on looks. That is not true. He saw her every day interacting with customers at the coffee shop. He liked her spirit.

Reviewers also can't understand why she would like our guy, especially since he was a faker. But you can't account for attraction. She saw the real him all along and liked it. Perhaps she was flattered that he made such an effort to accommodate her interests.

Women have intuition that guides them in relationships. She liked him. Let's accept that and move on.

Just Long's comedic timing was perfect in this one. It's like he was channeling Woody Allen without actually copying him. I also thought the cameos were fine. You had a fast-talking publisher, a gay midget coffee guy, an oafish ex-boyfriend, and a wacky guitar teacher, all played by stars. They were good. No one went over the top, which would have been very easy to do.

I think the best thing in this one was the roommate and his girlfriend. I'm not familiar with either actor, but they were natural, funny, down-to-earth, and genuinely helpful.

I don't know the lead girl, Ms. Wood, but she sure is lovely. If her character was not a child of hippies, she would have a jock boyfriend.

There was so much potential for this flick to fall into "Indie" stereotypes with a soundtrack, self-conscious performances, existential philosophy, and some depressing commentary on life. But this one didn't do that. The quirky pixie girl actually turned out to be a solid person with a forgiving soul and plenty of patience.

Although I would love to know how she supports herself.

One thing to note is that all her interests are wildly Left Wing, but she does explain that being due to her parentage. But I guess you could say that the one "Indie" stereotype is that the characters almost always love Godless, artsy stuff, and like most rom-coms, they seem to always live in New York. Trust me folks, N.Y. is not romantic at all. It's dirty, dangerous, crowded, and smelly.

Good movie. Not particularly memorable, but worth a date night. Enjoy.

On paper the story might work but in the film it does not. He fakes it until he makes it? That's not making sense. It's a recipe for disaster, likely to end in murder-suicide. Also, not credibly acted, and the is girl much too consistently nice to be real. Fake on fake!

This is a pretty good movie if there was an app to write movies using a vast template of clichés, stereotypes and characters and scenes you've seen a few thousand times before. It's not awful and its very well put together. Almost flawless. Technically it's like the robot version of a movie. And without irony, snarky, self criticism either. And to be fair it has some pretty funny small moments. And in a way it's refreshing to see a technically soulless perfect execution of an idea in an era of awful indie anarchist hipster junk still doing bad sound, shaky cam, weak lighting and an incoherent story.

But if you're looking for either something very good or new or interesting or even high drama, sitcom level high drama then no. You'll be disappointed. The machine isn't that sophisticated or adventurous for that. And that's a good thing because it will be entirely predictable, like comfort food.