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Wednesday, November 23, 2005
The unpleasant characters in 'Just Friends' deserve each other
Although set 10 years after high school graduation, "Just Friends" is a dumb teen comedy.
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When Chris (Ryan Reynolds), former overweight nerd turned athletic music-industry toady, is grounded near his Jersey hometown while on a flight to Paris with ditzy pop singer Samantha James (Anna Faris), he tries to romance childhood "just friend" Jamie (Amy Smart), with his Mr. Hollywood image.
Of course, she prefers the obese dork with whom she had so much fun as a teenager to the blundering idiot of a name-dropping ladies man he has become. Consequently, Chris gets real and rediscovers the essence of his personality through a series of humiliating mishaps.
Romantic comedy demands some empathy with the leading characters, and neither Reynolds nor Smart gives the viewer much to care about. She is a bland girl next door and he is a boob who can't even keep the retainer in his mouth after his teeth are loosened while he's trying to distinguish himself in a grade-school hockey match.
The rest of the characters are equally unpleasant, and it is of little interest who winds up with whom.
As a psychotic ditz, Faris provides the movie's only laughs. Her blend of inanity, over-the-top sexuality and aggressive brattiness enlivens many dull scenes. Unfortunately, she also has to do stupid and gross things ,such as consume a tube of toothpaste and drool it out of her mouth while trying to be seductive.
This is a pie-in-the-face comedy, but the pie has become a fist. Everybody in town gets a crack at smacking poor Chris, and this adolescent sadism is intended as a source of unlimited amusement.
The choice of Jersey as a setting is mystifying, as there is nothing to distinguish the town from any other American suburb. Perhaps the writer and director believe the stereotype of Jersey as the only place in the country where nobody evolves beyond a 16-year-old mentality.
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