Una rete di bugie

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.

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.

In the age of social media, dating has become infinitely more complicated, and the ability to pore over your loved one's Facebook profile or Twitter feed to find those little idiosyncracies that make them unique is something we've probably all experienced. But what happens when you start taking it a bit too far?

Written by Justin Long (who also stars), A Case of You follows struggling writer Sam, whose daily trips to a local coffee shop have left him infatuated with the free-spirited Birdie (Evan Rachel Wood). Unfortunately, Birdie loses her job before Sam works up the nerve to ask her out, but never fear - with a little bit of Facebook stalking, Sam can not only find out where she'll be next, he can also begin molding himself into her ideal match.

Yes, it sounds more than a little creepy, but Long is charming and charismatic enough to keep us interested, and Sam's willingness to put himself into incredibly awkward situations in order to impress Birdie result in some humorous exchanges. There are also a few laugh-out-loud moments that come courtesy of Keir O'Donnell as Sam's roommate and Peter Dinklage as a flamboyantly sassy barista.

While amusing at times, A Case of You doesn't stray far from the typical romantic comedy template: boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy learns important life lesson and tries to win girl back. The chemistry between Long and Wood is believable, and watching them together is far from boring, but the film never aspires to be more than a paint-by-numbers affair. It's a decent first effort for screenwriter Long, but certainly nothing that reinvents the genre.

-- Brent Hankins, www.nerdrep.com

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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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.