Film Review: They Came Together

SITCOM: THE MOVIE

Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation), Cobie Smulders (How I Met Your Mother), Jack McBrayer (30 Rock), Max Greenfield (New Girl), Kenan Thompson (SNL), Bill Hader (SNL), Ellie Kemper (The Office), Ken Marino (Party Down), Ed Helms (The Office), Paul Rudd (ummm… Friends!)

Yes, the cast of David Wain’s rom-com-parody They Came Together reads like a supergroup of 21st Century TV Comedy stars, and the film itself isn’t exactly cinematic either. It begins with Rudd and Poehler’s characters having dinner with Hader and Kemper, who ask them how they met. Rudd and Poehler tell the, as they describe it, “very clichéd” story of how they met and fell in and out of love, which plays just like the most soppy, obvious romantic comedy ever made.

Rudd and Poehler are as watchable and delightful as you would expect, while the supporting cast get their moments to shine (McBrayer is criminally underused with just two lines). The Airplane/30 Rock-technique of everything being taken literally (“that guy really has a poll up his ass. Watch out- he really does!”) is used to great comic effect, and even the most old-fashioned jokes, used to fit in with the Bad Rom Com template of the script, are often childishly laugh-out-loud moments.

At under 90 minutes and with a very televisual, cheap visual sensibility, They Came Together isn’t exactly a Groundbreaking Comedy Classic, but you could do a lot worse if you’re looking for a laugh.

★★★★