Post by The Film Stage.
Formulaic, generic romantic comedies are a dime a dozen in Hollywood today, but with his latest film director David Wain is doing what he can to turn the genre on its ear - and he's doing so by making a romantic comedy that is more formulaic and generic than any romantic comedy you have ever seen before. It's a concept that's difficult to get across in writing, but today, thanks to Buzz Feed and The Film Stage, the movie can now speak for itself. Above you'll find the first clip from the spoof They Came Together, and once you get over the initial awkwardness of it you'll begin to see that this idea may be kind of genius.
The movie will be making its big world premiere as the Closing Night film of this year's Sundance Film Festival, and in advance of the screening Wain has also published a director's statement about the project. It's filled to the brim with sarcasm, but fans will instantly recognize the filmmaker's sense of humor:
"After having already made world-changing cinematic statements on adolescence (Wet Hot American Summer), religion (The Ten), service (Role Models), and community (Wanderlust), I teamed up with Michael Showalter to take on a topic that (to our knowledge) has yet been seen in the movies: ROMANCE — particularly heterosexual romance between two white people.Our next idea was to mix this romance story with humor - so you could almost call this a Romantic-Comedy, so to speak.We first worked with Amy Poehler and Paul Rudd on Wet Hot American Summer. They played summer camp counselors in that movie, so it was obviously hard for us to imagine them playing a shopkeeper and a corporate executive, respectively. But thanks to a team of acting coaches and an award™ winning VFX team, we pulled off the illusion"
The big question mark that now surrounds this film is whether or not it will be able to sustain the gag for the length of entire feature film. There's only so much laughter that can come from constantly pointing out tropes and accepted ridiculousness. Being a fan of Wain's, however, I'm confident that this movie will have at least a few bizarre twists and turns that will keep things interesting.
Also debuting with the clip is the movie's poster, which also takes the generic joke to new levels. I love that it pokes fun at Deadline with its bland pull quotes, but my favorite detail is the small red print at the very bottom that says "Please Note: New York City Plays Such A Central Role In This Story, It Is Almost Like Another Character In The Movie."
In addition to Rudd and Poehler, They Came Together also stars Ed Helms, Cobie Smulders, Michael Shannon, Christopher Meloni, Melanie Lynskey, Jason Mantzoukas, Michael Ian Black, Randall Park and Max Greenfield. The film doesn't currently have a release date, but you can probably expect it to come out some time later this year.
