Dave Franco and Alison Brie should be on the list of Hollywood Power Couples. I’ve loved Brie since her Community days, and Franco has been a delight since people don’t forget he peed his pants in Superbad. Franco takes his older brother’s camera path and goes behind the scenes to direct his wife in Somebody I Used to Know. Even Gotye wasn’t as melodramatic as this film is at times, though once it finds what its trying to say it lands on something more interesting than I was expecting.
Though she aimed for high powered documentary filmmaker, Ally (Alison Brie) settles for a stable career producing a reality TV program, Dessert Island, essentially a baking competition with sexcapades. At the end of the latest season, her show is thrown in flux, and Ally decides to finally go visit her mom (Julie Hagerty) back at home in Leavenworth Seattle, an adorable Pacific Northwest small town. While back, she runs into a bunch of people from her past, including her ex, Sean (Jay Ellis). After a fun magical trip down memory lane, the two part ways, but Sean awakens something inside Ally, so she goes to hand out with him again…only to find out he’s engaged to twentyish year old Cassidy (Kiersey Clemons), and the wedding is in a couple days.
I’m glad Dave Franco gave his wife a well deserved starring vehicle, but he sure saddled her with a lot to overcome. The first 30 minutes are straight out of the indie dramedy playbook: big town girl goes back to small hometown. I definitely saw a bajillion of these films around Christmastime. Plus, the plot is the 2023 version of My Best Friend’s Wedding: the Simpsons got it right again. Do you remember the plot of that movie? Poor Alison Brie is setting the audience up to really had “that b*tch” as Cassidy calls her, in an indie dramedy that’s really trying to be super important. Yikes! I know you love your wife Dave, but there are a couple things Ally does in the movie that really set you up to turn off the movie immediately, because of how detestable she and most of the characters can be at times.
Thankfully, Brie is an engaging screen queen, and she is up for the challenge, as is pretty much every cast member. For those who haven’t seen Brie outside of a comedic setting, Somebody I Used to Know will show you more facets of her talents. After flying with Maverick last summer, Jay Ellis gets more of a chance to act than just be shirtless here. His charm and charisma keeps the audience from really despising him when the movie wants him to look bad, and he gives nuance to a role that would have fallen apart with a worse actor. The surprise is Kiersey Clemons. Like Cameron Diaz in My Best Friend’s Wedding, Clemons pops off the screen, using some adept writing to dig into Cassidy. Subplot shortcomings aside, Clemons rises above the plot failings to paint the most compelling character in the movie, making us think maybe the movie should have been about her. But maybe the biggest surprise is that after that eye rolling first 30 minutes, Franco and Brie’s script finds something really interesting to say about relationships and dating clearly hinted at by the title, including some small but effective plot swerves that reset the power dynamics among the characters. All of these people are just messy enough to be relatable but not such a mess that they prove unwatchable, a tricky balance the story sticks the landing on.
Rarely does a movie win me over after some rocky beginnings, but Somebody I Used to Know did. It’s got its heart in the right place, and really wants everyone who’s tried to date and scared of being hurt again to feel seen. And we also get a bit of Brie’s freestyling set to a Third Eye Blind song, very much in my wheelhouse and anyone’s wheelhouse from the late 90s American Pie soundtrack world.