Somebody I Used to Know review – Dave Franco-directed dramedy is a sickly stodgefest
This stodgy relationship dramedy is directed by Dave Franco, who co-writes with his star (and wife) Alison Brie. I wonder if at some stage in the past one or both of them have seen Jason Reitman’s jet-black comedy Young Adult, scripted by Diablo Cody? There are some distinct similarities. The tone, however, is different: this is an odd combination of broad semi-satirical humour and deeply serious hugging and learning.
Brie plays Ally, a producer in LA who long ago abandoned her dream of making serious documentaries and now runs a silly TV reality show. When this gets humiliatingly cancelled by the network, Ally comes miserably back to her home town in a state of midlife crisis and discovers that she is still very much attracted to Sean (Jay Ellis), a handsome, sweet local guy whose heart she broke 10 years ago by leaving him to pursue her film-making career. Sean is now getting married to a stylish and supercool young musician called Cassidy (Kiersey Clemons). Poor, messedup Ally hangs around, making everyone uncomfortable with her obvious desire to break up this relationship and get back with Sean.
But then there’s something else: the more she gets to know Cassidy the more they like each other, and Ally sees in Cassidy a younger version of herself (although the impact of this revelation is undermined by the fact that both the older and putative younger versions of Ally are equally uninteresting). It’s nice to see a role for Julie Hagerty as Ally’s sexually active mom, getting some afternoon delight with a teacher from Ally’s old school – but her in flagrante scenes come close to being embarrassing in the wrong way.
• Somebody I Used to Know is released on 10 February on Prime Video