Fans of the subgenre of film that is the rom-com have seen it all, so when a film like Amazon’s I Want You Back comes along, it should be celebrated.
Charlie Day is Peter and he and Anne (Gina Rodriguez) had been going strong for years. The operative word in that sentence was “had,” i.e., past tense. Jenny Slate is Emma, and she and Noah (Scott Eastwood) were also doing well. On the same day, Anne dumps Peter and Noah breaks up with Emma. A few days later, Peter and Emma meet by happenstance—they work in the same building. Each was crying hysterically about their respective break-ups in the stairwell. Their offices are one floor apart.
Over a cavalcade of drinks and some genuinely enjoyable Karaoke, Emma and Peter hatch a plan. Together, these united-by-heartbreak-pals are going to bust up their exes’ new relationship. Noah has moved on with Ginny (Clark Backo) and Anne is dating Logan (Manny Jacinto). Not /insinuating their former lovers weren’t, but the viewer gathers that both Anne and Noah were attracted to their new love interest because they possess a few things that they felt were missing from Emma and Peter. Ginny owns her own bakery and coffee shop and is “driven” while Logan is a “director and an artist” who possesses a “deep soul.” Now, to be fair, Logan is a middle school drama teacher—not exactly scorching the Great White Way with Pulitzer Prize-winning productions—and is ramping up his vision for the best middle school production of Little Shop of Horrors.
By commencing the rom-com narrative with two souls, united by the grief of a lost relationship, pairing up for nefarious purposes, the milieu gets a much-needed shot in the arm. Screenwriters Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger still use certain tropes that are must-haves for any rom-com, but their narrative takes turns that are utterly unpredictable. Yes, we know that the couple at the heart of this endeavor is Emma and Peter. This is their story. But how we get there is about as fresh as this genre gets.
Watching Slate pretend to be a childless fan of middle school theater so she can get “in” with Logan is beyond brilliant. It’s comedy gold, but also possesses an emotional reveal of her character and it is one that not only draws the audience closer to this adorable individual, but you can get the absolutely organic sense that Peter could be over his ex and that buzz he feels in his tummy whenever he spends time together with Emma is a budding romance.
The same thing happens on the other side of this coin. Peter hires Noah to be his personal trainer (there’s his “in”) and in the process, we meet a self-deprecating, endearing, and hilarious person that would be amazingly easy to think about spending the rest of your life alongside that kind of individual. It’s different here in I Want You Back for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is the bro chemistry between Noah and Peter. He’s a great guy. Not only is he easy on the eyes, but he is as friendly as a human can be and when Noah coaches you to that twenty-fifth push-up, his high-fives and hugs are as natural and the budding feelings between our two antagonistic protagonists.
We love the choice that Aptaker and Berger take with the Noah character. It would have been easy to make him a jerk and be filled with flaws that make reporting back to Emma about this guy would be easier, frankly. Instead, Peter likes Noah and if there wasn’t a slightly selfish plot at the heart of this social experiment and the two, as painted by the actors, the screenwriter and how their scenes are helmed by Jason Orley, one could see that those two pals could become the best of friends. But there’s the whole trying to break up your new relationship thing. Yeah, that.
There are countless opportunities for Orley or his writers to make choices that mirror those a million times prior by other rom-com creators. Instead, throughout, the surprises abound and how it plays out may not be pretty or wrapped in a bow. It is, however, grounded, charming, and firmly puts the “com” in rom-com as the other romantic offering this Valentine’s Day weekend, the Jennifer Lopez-Owen Wilson Marry Me emphasizes the “rom” in that two-word catchphrase.
Day seems like the most unlikely of loveable leads in a romantic film. But as he plays Peter, his innate appeal shines through, and becomes easy to see how Emma could find love with him and, just possibly, let go of her personal trainer handsome as all get-up ex. The It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star shows once again that the right kind of humor can be a key to a woman’s heart. Emma wasn’t looking for Peter, but she found him.
As if Slate doesn’t have enough going for her as an actress with this role she was born to play, she delivers a version of Suddenly Seymour from Little Shop of Horrors that is out-of-this-world. Slate is divine. She plays put-upon better than anyone. In her mind, she was the perfect girlfriend. Sure, she wasn’t working her dream job, but if you look at the percentages, a majority of people don’t. (That was one reason Noah gave as to why he was breaking up with her.) As borne by Slate, Emma is filled with drive, she simply needs to figure out where to spend that professional and personal passion.
Eastwood and Rodriguez play their supporting roles with pitch perfection. Each could have molded a character that is shallow. Instead, Noah and Anne have qualities where the viewer can see why Peter and Emma’s attitude towards them is the moniker for the movie. Often times in rom-coms, the exes can be painted as awful and we as the audience painfully wait for our leads to come to their senses. Aptaker and Berger chose a different route to tell their story that simultaneously puts two people (Emma and Peter) in a grounded-in-reality place to possibly find love with each other and does not demonize their exes—even as they (often) hilariously try to derail their newfound happiness.
Orley made his directorial debut in 2019 with the Pete Davidson vehicle Big Time Adolescence. That was a movie that had no business being as entertaining as it was and after experiencing his I Want You Back, it becomes clear that this is a filmmaker who can put romance and comedy in his movies, and yet they don’t have to conform to the checklist of what every rom-com “must-have.”
That is absolutely what we have with the filmmaker’s latest. If there is a genre that needs fresh blood, ideas, and narratives, it is romantic comedies. Judging by what Orley has delivered with I Want You Back—as it navigates the most landmine-laden landscape for finding cinematic love—could not have been an easy task by a longshot. His filmmaking touch is ideal for this story. Just as he got the most out of Davidson for Big Time Adolescence, the helmer empowers his entire ensemble to reinvent the rom-com wheel and everyone involved delivers.
Grade: A-