A Case of You

Where the romantic comedy A Case of You, starring Justin Long and Evan Rachel Wood, succeeds is ultimately where it missteps. Directed Kat Coiro assembles a terrific cast including the underutilized Sam Rockwell and extremely memorable Peter Dinklage, however, the screenplay that is co-written by Long along with brother Christian and Keir O'Donnell doesn't have a true sense of identity. Tells the story of a young man who thinks he's met the girl of his dreams and attempts to court her by all interests and statuses from her Facebook page.

In an era where social media is prevalent and dating becomes the new norm via a tweet or a poke, the story rings true in many ways. However, the misguided title and evolution of events don't exactly scream fresh and unique. Coiro manages some very funny moments and gets some decent outcomes from some of the cast particularly Evan Rachel Wood and Peter Dinklage. In its short running time, the film doesn't exactly feel smooth and polished in the way a comedy needs to be.

With all the obvious flaws, A Case of You is still very entertaining and enjoyable. Sam Rockwell is memorable in his few moments on-screen along with Vince Vaughn and Brendan Fraser. Check it out when you can.

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Sam (Justin Long) is a weary writer who novelizes movies. He turns already made movies into novels. He is smitten with the coffee shop girl Birdie Hazel (Evan Rachel Wood). So he uses her Facebook profile to bone up on all her favorites.

This is co-written by Justin Long. He's playing his try and true awkward uncomfortable character. There are a lot of great actors. Peter Dinklage, Sam Rockwell and Brendan Fraser are all going out of their way to play wild crazy characters. It would have been better if one of them played the bigger character of the best friend. Of course they were probably just doing Justin a favor. Evan Rachel Wood is lovely but she's not the rom-com type. There are mildly amusing performances. The central concept is a good idea to write a movie around. The ending is quite cheesy. The movie needs much better writing. It makes me appreciate how hard comedy is.

"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+.

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.

"A Case of You" is worth singling out if some great flicks like "Ruby Sparks" made you dig for more. Though, this movie is sort of reliving the dumb formula from the comparison. Okay, an honest opinion is that viewers will be fractured by the plot's predictability, but I'm buying. That doesn't prevent me from saying that the film is one of the sweet romantic comedies bolstered with energy from its young cast ensemble of bright comedians. I dunno, but call me crazy.

Sam (Justin Long) is a well-known author that suffers a block to his next book. An inspiration is what he totally needs, suffice to say. Until she meets the cute blondie coffee gal named Birdie (Evan Rachel Wood), he develops a quirky obsession. As soon as Sam learns that she was fired for frequent tardiness at work, he decided to stalk her Facebook account and decisively scan her likes, interests, and routines. Sam is the ideal manly stalker. And one by one he tries to learn what she likes to do: Play the guitar, read Darwinian, and rock climbing. This is in no doubt a rudimentary principle of we follow in order to woo our special someone, and I admire the film for having the guts to deliver it regardless of being stereotyped.

The chemistry between Long and Wood feels cheesy but endearing. Though, their kismet might be unfairly familiar but at least it's sugar-coated with their funny moment and both make it work. We also get the most of Keir O'Donnell as Sam's buddy roommate Eliot especially from his late- bloomer taboo jokes therein. And the same goes to Peter Dinklage as a gay barista and Brendan Fraser as Birdie's ex Tony. Too bad Dinklage and Fraser is alarmingly hilarious they deserve more time frame than Busy Philips and Vince Vaughn (although he's too substantial) who are both fruitless here. Also adding Sam Rockwell to the mix as the guitar lesson instructor, it gets ticklish funny.

The credits for the screenplay goes to Justin, his brother Christian, and O'Donnell themselves. Kudos to them. They keep me howling in some of their one-liners and made me attracted to their persona. However, like I said their notion for the narrative may disappoint for its jaded impression. This explains why major distributors refused to finance the film for trust issues and let IFC do it anyway. Nevertheless, this made me look forward for Justin for his next screenplay pitch and see what he could bring new to the table other than acting well in this film. He's proved to be an actor and auteur.

The film doesn't just focus on the love story per se. As we delve into Sam's motivational ease, we're starting to care for whether what he's potent feelings towards Birdie is ideal to be in his own writing or not. The message is too simple to guess, but heck we all have our Sams within us. If Sam don't end up winning Birdie's heart, at least she ends up helping him close the chapter.

"A Case of You" is essentially sweet quirky rom-com that kept me howling with hilarity straight up. If you're a fan of Ruby Sparks, this touching gem is worth singling out.