Slow Learners

This film starts as a perfectly decent indie romcom, but somewhere in the middle it loses its way and becomes pretty terrible. For the second night in a row, I chose a movie based solely on Adam Pally's presence. He is, as always, quite good. His partner in crime here is Sarah Burns. I like Burns (mostly from the show Enlightened), but she and her character are mostly what's wrong with this film. She starts off quite well, but over the course of the film she becomes an insufferable jerk. The plot involves these two as dorky losers who work together at a high school. When summer starts, they decide they have to become cool to find love. They are both successful, but Burns becomes insanely jealous of Pally and goes crazy. Much of the problem is with the script, but Burns plays it all quite terribly and loudly. We know these two will end up together, but I spent half the film hoping like Hell Pally would realize Burns is a total psycho and keep his distance. The film has some good scenes and a few nice laughs, mostly in its first half. The strongest scenes involve Gil Ozeri and Bobby Moynihan as two nerdy brothers who are in a book club with Pally. I'd love to see a movie about these two.

Greetings again from the darkness. One of the staples of Romantic Comedies is that the two key players are the only ones who don't realize they are "right" for each other. This is often accomplished through one of two methods: either two characters who "despise" each other, or as characters who are "just good friends". This little film manages to blend those two approaches … and make us laugh in the process.

The first 15 or 20 minutes of the film are packed with very sharp comedy writing and acting. Adam Pally ("Happy Endings") plays Jeff, and Sarah Burns ("Enlightened") plays Anne. These two misfit adults get along very well together both as co-workers and friends who quote literature at (not to) each other. Anne's opening visit to the doctor (played by Peter Grosz of Sonic ad fame) is outright hilarious, while Adam's book club features some real zingers from Bobby Moynihan, Gil Ozeri, and Reid Scott ("Veep").

It's not until Jeff and Anne make a pact to change their public personas in an effort to be "cool" and more attractive to the opposite sex that the film takes kind of a nasty – well at least unlikable – turn. Becoming alcoholic d-bags does help them experience a summer of wild escapades, but predictably, neither is especially happy. Anne picks up pointers from some trashy reality TV show called "Prisoners of Love" … a knock-off of "The Bachelor" that deals with convicts and the women who would love them.

Adding to the comedic elements are quick scenes with Cecily Strong, Catherine Reitman (daughter of Ivan) and Kate Flannery, along with a couple of sequences with Jeff's parents (Kevin Dunn, Marceline Hugot). More interactions with the parents would have been a welcome respite from the extended d-baggery of Jeff and Anne.

Mr. Pally is a master of the deadpan delivery, while Ms. Burns can best be described as a Kristen Wiig starter kit (that's a compliment). Co-directors Don Argott and Sheena Joyce, and co-writers Matt Serword and Peter Swords lost sight of what delivered such a strong beginning for the film, and instead focused on reminding us to "embrace the darkness" and to "Be yourself. Everyone else is taken". Good lessons indeed, but maybe not the comedy gold mine that was expected.

Honestly, anyone that is deemed a nerd has wondered what would happen if they just let go and be "normal". Most of the time we know how the story goes and what the ending will be, but it's the journey from point a to point b that really sticks with you. These characters are funny, predictable, awkward and goofy, but always genuine. I think that's what resonates with me, the characters reminded me of myself and situations where I've felt like an outsider only to want to grasp on to some popular ideal to eventually come to my senses. I love this movie for exactly what it was, romantic comedy. It did it's job, made me laugh and gave me butterflies. Good job!

By the way, Sarah Burns in the parking lot scene, brilliant!

Having been a big fan of Adam Pally from his TV work, I perhaps was hoping too much for a big screen Happy Endings. This movie is far from that. Though it has its funny moments, especially the opening sequence, and certainly Pally is frequently adorable and even heart breaking, the writing and direction here are so disjointed that i felt like it was three different movies patched together into one. The only time the movie, and Pally, really came to life was in the scenes with Pally's character and his parents. Those rang true, were funny and heart warming. And there was real chemistry among those characters. There was no chemistry between Pally and the object of his affection here, played by Sarah Burns. Her over the top performance and annoying facial tics did nothing to make me like this character or want the leads to end up together. The writing and directing are probably more to blame than Ms. Burns (they gave Mr. Pally a few facial tics of his own that were equally annoying). In the end, everything rings false and you know where it's going from start to finish.

Watch the first half of this movie and you, with any luck, will think it's seriously underrated. It's a witty script and there are some laugh out loud moments - ok, so I'd had a beer, but there are some great lines and situations.

However, the conceit for the transition into the middle part of the story is not really believable which renders the rest of the movie less believable. It's to do with character transformation although, I guess, if you accept 'arsehole' as an inevitable male transform it may work for you.

But once that's resolved, the movie ends as you'd totally expect it to end right from the first few frames so no real surprises. The joy is in the journey but, sadly, it loses the path of cleverness oit lays in the first half.

Sadly, a widely missed opportunity although I'd recommend it for the first half alone.