Directed by Jason Orley
Written by Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger
Starring Jenny Slate, Charlie Day, Scott Eastwood, Gina Rodriguez, Manny Jacinto
Runtime: 1 hour 51 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Available on Amazon Prime February 11th

by Ian Hrabe, Staff Writer

At this point in the life cycle of the romantic comedy, you either turn the formula on its head and subvert expectations, or you put together a strong enough cast that can elevate the tried and true (and often tedious) tropes of the genre. I Want You Back is of the latter variety, and while its plot is about as standard as it gets when it comes to romcoms, the casting of two offbeat comic leads in Jenny Slate (Obvious Child, Kroll Show) and Charlie Day (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Horrible Bosses) is inspired enough to make the movie worth a look if you and your sweetheart are looking for something sweet, funny, and not too sappy for Valentine’s Day.

The plot isn’t necessarily one you’ve seen before, but it’s one whose resolution you can see the second you read the logline. Here, two recently dumped thirtysomethings team up to sabotage their exes’ new relationships in an attempt to win them back. That’s the plot of a random contemporary romance novel you pick up at the airport, for sure, but Slate and Day are so funny and endearing together that it’s easy to overlook the foregone conclusion and enjoy this little comedy of errors (note: these characters all have names in the movie, of course they do, but they’re all the sort of meaningless stuff like Emma, Noah, Anne, Peter, etc., so I will refer to the characters by the actor’s playing them herein for clarity).

The terrific supporting cast does their fair share of heavy lifting here as well. Scott Eastwood (son of Clint, The Fate of the Furious) and Gina Rodriguez (Jane the Virgin, Annihilation) are tasked with playing the buttoned-up exes doing the dumping, and one great thing this movie does is give these straight-man (or straight-woman. Straight-people?) character types a chance to engage in some excellent, comedic buffoonery. Typically these characters in the romcom are there to suck and to show you that the person pining for them needs to move on, but both Eastwood and Rodriguez’s characters are written with enough depth to add a surprising layer to a formulaic romcom: that the dumpers were right to dump the dumpees (well, maybe not Gina Rodriguez, because Charlie Day is a sweet angel). Though Day and Slate have great chemistry, it surprisingly can’t match the chemistry between Day and Eastwood—who end up forming a little bromance within the romance in Day’s effort to meddle in Eastwood’s love life—which is just so joyful and blew up my assumption that Scott Eastwood was just some handsome dumbass. I now know he’s a handsome dumbass who can be very funny when asked.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Manny Jacinto’s turn as the spaced-out high school drama teacher who is dating the Gina Rodriguez character. Jacinto’s work as Jason Mendoza on The Good Place is low-key one of the funniest TV roles of the last 10 years and it’s a joy anytime he stumbles onto my screen. Here he takes his school’s production of Little Shop of Horrors WAY too seriously to great comedic effect and, because romcoms exist outside the normal plane of reality, leads to Slate belting out a showstopping rendition of “Suddenly, Seymour'' in her efforts to woo him away from Rodriguez. It’s a bizarre sequence, but it’s the sort of thing that gives I Want You Back enough idiosyncratic charm to separate it from the rest of the pack. As a dutiful husband, I sit through enough romcoms to know when one is punching above its weight. While this one is more above average than great, it puts on enough of a charm offensive to appease even a self-serious and insufferable movie nerd like myself, and that’s no mean feat.