That Awkward Moment is a new romantic comedy that tries to tell the story of modern twenty-somethings and their relationships"”from the male perspective. Unfortunately, the result is like a subpar Valentine's Day chocolate box assortment with little turds sprinkled in with the truffles.
First the setup: Mikey (played by Michael B. Jordan) is a successful medical something or other who seems to have it all together until he finds out his wife (Jessica Lucas) is cheating on him with the lawyer she just used to serve him divorce papers. His two layabout best friends, Jason (Zac Efron) and Daniel (Miles Teller) decide to do their best to cheer him up, and the three pledge to stay single and free out of solidarity. But when they all start hanging out with women, they have to face that crazy, wild, awkward moment of deciding whether to fall in love.
Anyone want to guess the ending?
That Awkward Moment is a bundle of contradictions. It's been advertised as wanting to show millennial relationships as they really happen, with the added twist of telling it from the male perspective. But it's packaged in a rigid rom-com formula straight out of the 90s and early 2000s, with meet-cutes and the "guys meet girls, lose girls, and get girls back" structure to boot. It just takes the basics of The Wedding Planner and adds hipsters and figures that will meet the burning desires of "millenials", which is at the same time a term for a generation and a code word that refers to self-referential rich, white twenty-somethings in NYC, DC, and LA. I mean, you can imagine the conversations"”"say this, because millenials are confused about the future and stuff!"
But bitching aside, this could have been a decent flick if not for the dialogue: the rapport between Efron, Teller and Jordan comes off as the most forced, silly thing ever. It seems as if they were told to imitate Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson's mile-a-minute, riffing banter. They can't pull it off. It's as if you put Robin Williams on speed, but then told him he had to act as ironic and detached as possible while doing his riffing.
Seriously, it reminded me of hanging out at my local comedy theater's bar after hours, when people have what my friend calls "bitversations", where everyone is looking for an opportunity to put out some material, and no one is actually listening or conversing with anyone else.
There are a few moments in the film that are assbustingly hilarious, and they are all the fault of Josh Pais, who is the opposite energy level of the other characters. He deserves some kind of laurel victory wreath for his role as the boys' odd coworker Frank. Seriously, get on social media and thank Josh Pais right now.
A note on Zac Efron"”this guy could be doing better things right now. He has a kind of early Colin Farell look to him and a menace underneath this romantic comedy bullshit veneer. I say get out of this trend and start looking for the next In, Bruges.
I can enjoy a good romantic comedy. If, like me, you are sick of this glorification of the self-doubt and confusion of the millenials, you may want to give this a miss. Or, if you just don't like middling rom-coms. That too. But in all fairness, the twentysomething, fashionably dressed young lady sitting a few seats down from me cackled all the way through this one. So maybe there's something I'm missing.
Another note: females of the cruder sort will appreciate a shot of Mr. Efron au naturale.
