'Somebody I Used to Know' works best in a haze
Amazon
"You're not going to pull some Julia Roberts, ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’-type shit are you?"
The question, asked by Cassidy (Kiersey Clemons) to Ally (Alison Brie) about the latter’s presence at the former’s pre-wedding festivities to Ally’s ex Sean (Jay Ellis), is a relief for two reasons: It not only acknowledges the basic familiarity of the premise of “Somebody I Used to Know” but taps into how the movie, written by real-life spouses Brie an director Dave Franco, understands how to honestly address complicated situations without simplifying them.
Ally’s back in her hometown of Leavenworth, Washington, visiting her mom (Julie Hagerty of “Marriage Story” and “Airplane”) for the first time in years and getting some space from L.A., where her reality show “Dessert Island” has been canceled after three seasons. She wanted to make documentaries (quick nod to the way “Nope” considers the line between those) and is both proud and ashamed of getting to run her own series — where so many chefs seem to have hooked up that the food, for some viewers, was an after-thought. Feelings about her career are also intertwined with those goals, that knowing of her passion and the need to try having been what 10 years earlier broke up her and Sean, who always wanted a quieter life near his adoptive family. When they share a gleeful night out after running into each other at a bar, old feelings are stirred sooner than Ally can learn about Cassidy, and suddenly Ally’s taking up Sean’s mom’s (Olga Merediz) invitation to serve as videographer for the wedding — sweetly, naively noting that Ally’s family and it would be weird if she weren’t there.
Unlike Franco’s sturdy, unsettling “The Rental,” “Somebody I Used to Know” is much more of a mixed bag, particularly when going for laughs. Between Ally’s cat getting sick on the plane to her walking in on her mom and Ally’s third-grade teacher at the worst possible time, the movie gets off to a rough start comedically and doesn’t improve each time it smirks at Sean’s brother Jeremy’s (Haley Joel Osment) lame pop culture references. The commentary on reality TV, meanwhile, feels stale and vague, mocking without bringing new understanding. (I both chuckled and groaned at a chef noting, “I wasn’t here to make friends, I was here to make flans.”)
Somehow, though, Franco and Brie’s pursuit of emotional discovery — from Ally utilizing silence when interviewing to evoke further sharing to the film’s overall exploration of compromise and needs — rises above the weak humor and cheap plot points requiring deception and manipulation. At heart “Somebody I Used to Know” is about the messy reasons people do things (alone and with and to each other) and the separation between what is said, done and felt. Strong performances (Brie again shows her ability to carry a movie) also bring a sense of freshness and rawness to its view of uncertain decisions and feeling a lot of conflicting things at once, though we’re a far cry here from something like “La La Land.”
It’s all awkward, sexy, confusing, exciting, vulnerable and brave, and a movie that can blend those tends to leave a decent aftertaste regardless of a few flavors that could have been set aside.
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