Rooting for rom-com couple to break up

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Celeste (Rashida Jones, left) and Jesse (Andy Samberg) make such a cute couple. (DAVID LANZENBERG/ SONY PICTURES CLASSICS)

Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl back.

Celeste and Jesse Forever sets itself apart from the usual rom-com riff-raff by whipping through that plot convention by the time the opening credits have faded. This movie's approach is to look at romance through the unusual lens of the legendary "amicable divorce."

Celeste (co-scripter Rashida Jones) is a career-oriented marketing expert who believes that just because she has called it quits with her husband Jesse (Andy Samberg) is no reason why they shouldn't hang out.

In fact, Jesse lives in the converted garage out back where he maintains his laissez-faire attitude to a career.

Their fun-loving relationship upsets their friends, whose understanding of the term "separation" carries an implication of hostility.

The more realistic concern is that the cycle of socializing/hangin' and sex-with-the-ex won't allow either Celeste or Jesse to move on with their lives.

And it turns out that is a legitimate concern, when Jesse starts taking tentative steps towards dating again. Compelled to action, Celeste's re-entry into the dating realm is more disastrous, coincident with her career, which takes a turn for the worse when her company is hired to represent a snarly teen recording star (Emma Roberts).

When Jesse announces he has reason to start anew with a new woman in her life -- she's pregnant -- it spurs the more conventional marital breakup complete with tears, accusations and bad behaviour.

If you've only seen Jones playing the sensible Ann Perkins on Parks and Recreation, prepare for a more outré comic performance. It's perversely funny to see Jones in full-blown train-wreck mode, and she handles those duties with a lovely lack of inhibition.

But it's not all about the laughs. Jones and co-writer Will McCormack have also fashioned decent character arcs for these ex-lovers, as Jesse hesitantly takes on the challenge of serious responsibilty and Celeste takes an even more daunting journey into humility.

The film's weakest link is Elijah Wood doing a self-aware riff on that rom-com staple: the gay best friend.

Aside from that, this is a pleasing comedy from director Lee Toland Krieger. It's debatable if you can even call this a romantic comedy, given it's about a protracted breakup. But given the option between this and the usual boy-meets-girl/boy-loses-girl/boy-gets-girl-back story, I'll take this.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Other voices

Selected excerpts from reviews of Celeste and Jesse Forever:

Tries to blend chick-flick staples with bro humour but never quite gets the mix right.

-- Connie Ogle, Miami Herald

It's supposed to exemplify witty, edgy, indie comedy. But (it) turns out to be a formula movie...

-- John Anderson, Newsday

Jones and Samberg are an agreeable pair, but nothing about Celeste or Jesse would make you want to spend an evening with them, much less eternity.

-- Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune

The movie feels lived in by its characters and its makers, which is more than you can say for most romantic comedies, indie or otherwise.

-- Ty Burr, Boston Globe

Celeste and Jesse Forever is far funnier than you'd expect a film about a tortuous split to be -- and more deft and melancholy than any other comedy I can recall that co-stars a six-foot bong and a tub of Cheese Balls.

-- Kimberley Jones, Austin Chronicle

A different kind of romantic comedy: one that starts at the end and tries to make sense of itself.

-- Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times

-- Compiled by Shane Minkin

Movie review

Celeste and Jesse Forever

Starring Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg

Globe

14A

89 minutes

3 stars out of five

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 31, 2012 D6