Cast: Aubrey Plaza in a starring role. That alone got me in the theater. I'm happy to say that she did a pretty good job front and center. Her character isn't extremely different from April Ludgate, but part of that is because, when you cast Plaza, you get Plaza. I won't say she doesn't have range but she'd definitely mastering a specific shade first. Jake Johnson plays a bit of a douche. He does that overgrown manchild thing well though. Mark Duplass creates as believable a character as he can given the script. More on that in a bit. I've never seen Karan Soni before. He seems fine in his limited role on the movie. There's a bunch of bit parts played by people you've seen before but none had enough screen time to warrant talking about.
Plot: The concept is pretty fun. It certainly screams "indie movie" in a good way. The plot that was advertised, however, is maybe half of the time. The rest of the movie is pretty much a bunch of non-connected side stories with Johnson and Soni's characters. I think it would've been better had they cut those out so the main story didn't get so shortchanged. It ends about the only way it can and scene-to-scene, things follow almost exactly how you'd expect. The core story is well handled though.
Elephant in the Room: I've never heard of this movie. Is it even in theaters? I've been on the lookout for this one since I heard about it during the festival circuit. However, it's not a big nationwide release and I don't think I've seen any trailers for it. If you haven't heard of it, that's expected. That hardly means it's bad.
To Sum Things Up:
For all its shortcomings, I quite liked this. I wish it would've gotten a bigger release so I didn't have to see it at the discount theater. For most people, it's worth checking out when it inevitably makes its way to the instant queue on Netflix.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
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