"CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER"
Screenplay Written by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack
Directed by Lee Toland Krieger
***1/2 (three and a half stars)
"Let's admit we made a mistake
But can we still be friends?
Heartbreak's never easy to take
But can we still be friends?...
...Memories linger on
It's like a sweet, sad old song
-Todd Rundgren "Can We Still Be Friends?"
I am happily wondering if the tide has turned for the better in regards to movie love stories.
I have lamented on Savage Cinema about the current and depressingly uninspired state of cinematic love stories and especially brain dead and empty hearted romantic comedies so often that I promise to not rehash old wounds so as not to bore you. What I do wish to talk to you about is how surprised I have been as just this year I have already seen four love stories that felt to be beautifully representative of how real people behave when confronted with realistic romantic situations and emotions.
Early this year, Co-Writer/Director Nicholas Stoller, Co-Writer/Actor Jason Segal and Producer Judd Apatow reunited for the wry and deeply perceptive "The Five-Year Engagement," a romantic comedy that explored not only how a couple fell in love but how that same couple remains in love. This summer, we were given "Ruby Sparks," from Directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris in collaboration with Writer/Actress Zoe Kazan. In that film, we were presented with a provocative romantic entanglement that contained the dangerous consequences that occur when your every romantic wish is indeed granted and the object of your affections is everything you wish for them to be. Co-Writer/Director/Actor Mike Birbiglia's "Sleepwalk With Me" even contained a sad yet freshly delivered take on modern day relationships as it features a couple who remains together out of love but mostly out of niceness and it also depicts how the anxiety of that relationship perilously affects one's subconscious. And I am still going to loudly beat the drum for Writer/Director Lorene Scafaria's outstanding "Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World," which for my money was the best love story I have seen since Director Michel Gondry and Writer Charlie Kaufman's "Eternal Sunshine Of the Spotless Mind" (2004). Yes, these are just four films out of the very many that have been released so far this year. But when you think about how many love stories and romantic comedies have truly been worth your time and money, the ones that make your heart pulsate in the very hope and sorrow that permeates our real world relationships, finding four films in one year almost amounts to a minor miracle. And now, we arrive with a fifth!
Director Lee Toland Krieger's "Celeste And Jesse Forever" is a wonderfully and refreshingly perceptive romantic comedy/drama about what happens when best friends who fall in love and marry arrive at the point where they cannot remain romantic partners anymore and how they emotionally move onwards while desperately trying to retain the friendship they adore with each other. The film most effectively wipes away the stale movie memories left behind by the likes of Director Peyton Reed's terrible Vince Vaughn/Jennifer Aniston vehicle "The Break-Up" (2006) and Director Lone Scherfig's emotionally tone deaf "One Day" (2011), the interminable film version of David Nicholls' outstanding novel. Both of those films had absolutely no realistic idea or bravery in their cinematic heads and hearts whatsoever of the precarious nature of love affairs gone south or cherished friendships damaged and enhanced by love and sex. Krieger makes no mistakes at all with "Celeste And Jesse Forever," a film that truly announces the arrival of Rashida Jones as a creative force to be reckoned with as she not only delivered a terrific performance, she has also graced us with her pitch perfect debut as a Screenwriter. Once this film finds its way to your city, it would behoove you to make the trip, purchase tickets and enjoy this particular cinematic ride.
With a beautifully photographed and edited opening credit montage, "Celeste And Jesse Forever" traces the beginnings, evolution and disintegration of the love affair between Celeste Martin (Rashida Jones) and Jesse Abrams (a surprisingly strong Andy Samberg). Now in their 30's, Celeste, a successful trend forecaster and co-owner of a media company, and Jesse, an unemployed artist, have somehow remained best friends. They still spend seemingly every moment together, seemingly perfectly in sync with each other, especially as they crack their well worn jokes using comical voices and gleefully vulgar masturbatory humor with simple props like lip balm or tiny corn cobs. As the film opens properly, Celeste and Jesse are having dinner with their mutual friends Beth (Ari Graynor) and Tucker (Eric Christian Olsen), who are also engaged and soon to be married. After enduring more of Celeste and Jesse's "comedy act," Beth explodes with a flurry of angry and confused questions of how exactly can they be acting in the way they are acting as they are separated and soon to be divorced. Celeste and Jesse explain as honestly as they are able, "We're still best friends," making this situation "the perfect breakup." If only it were truly that easy...
Life throws Celeste a wholly unexpected curve ball as Jesse discovers, and soon confesses, that a brief fling with a lovely woman named Veronica (Rebecca Dyan) during the early stages of their separation has produced a pregnancy, a situation Jesse fully intends to honor to the best of his abilities. Watching Jesse's life progress in ways she never envisioned or anticipated, forces Celeste to begin a hard examination of the course of her life, where and how her marriage with Jesse failed, and if it is even possible to retain the best friendship of her life even as their respective hearts are breaking and their lives are evolving without each other.
Several years ago, on an episode of the now defunct "At The Movies," film critic Richard Roeper practically wailed a priceless suggestion to filmmakers in response to having had to sit through one more excruciating romantic comedy: "Here's an idea: How about a romantic comedy where the characters actually like each other?!" My sentiments exactly and most enthusiastic cheers to Krieger, Jones and Co-Writer Will McCormack for never once allowing "Celeste And Jesse Forever" to devolve into lowest common denominator mass appeal stunts from all manner of wacky plots and completely unconvincing acts of so-called human behavior. As I have said before and will happily announce to you with great feeling all over again, "Celeste And Jesse Forever" is a movie about real people dealing realistically with real emotions. It is a film without villains but allows its characters to have the very complexities and shadings that are easily recognizable, understandable and most importantly, allow the inherent comedy and drama of the situations to occur as organically and as unforced as possible. Krieger encases the film with much warmth, romance, and exquisite pain through sharp cinematography and an excellent music score provided by the curiously named Sunny Levine and Zach Cowie for Biggest Crush (where is the soundtrack album???), all of which enhances the excellent performances from the entire cast.
As Jesse, Andy Samberg left me in a thrill of sweet surprise as I had never envisioned him to be able to elicit a performance of such gravity. He is fully convincing as a romantic lead as he fully commits to his character and never for an instant winks at the camera or falls into his trademark goofiness at the expense of his character and the very real, life altering situations and emotional confusion Jesse spirals into. As much as I will miss his presence on "Saturday Night Live," I am more than excited to see exactly what cinematic choices he will make next based upon his fine work in this film.
But the brightest shining star of "Celeste And Jesse Forever" is undoubtedly and undeniably the absolutely stunning Rashida Jones, who brings the character of Celeste to vibrant life through laughs and pathos that are equally piercing. Her double duty skills as a leading actress and Screenwriter are formidable and in complete lockstep as the story she and McCormack have conceived ensures that the film does not exist solely as a vanity project. Jones has created and performed as realistic a woman of the 21st century as the women I know and see every day of my life. And I particularly loved how Jones had no interest in fashioning a character that was "likeable," served as a long suffering ingenue or as a character built to serve the stupid "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" cliches that plague most movie love stories.
Celeste Martin is a driven, Type A personality and from that you can easily see how the threads of her marriage to Jesse have frayed over time as his wayward tendencies have left him more than a little unmotivated in moving his life, and therefore, his half of the marriage forwards. Her resentment is clear and for that you cannot blame her. But when Jesse makes the decision to leave his specialized brand of arrested development behind for Veronica and their baby, Jones is unafraid in allowing us to see Celeste's darker side, as her more condescending, cavalier, and controlling qualities race to the forefront of her behavior. And again, as Celeste's choices become more questionable and her actions make her a tad more deplorable, she is always, always understandable. How would you feel if the person you loved is able to suddenly make profound life changes for someone other than you? And what if those life changes occurred on a time table that was not of your own conception or choosing? What if you had planned to have your own life move onwards before your former lover and those plans went up in smoke? And what of this treasured friendship? What happens when the person, whom you have known for so much of your life, who is the very first in line of those who understand and accept you, warts and all, essentially vanishes and leaves you more than a little unhinged? While all of those questions, and more, haunt Celeste terribly, we are ultimately graced with a rich, dazzling, deeply compelling character for whom we wish happiness in a most honest and uncloying presentation.
In addition to the female Screenwriters who have contributed to and created several of the films I have mentioned at the outset of this review, Rashida Jones' work in "Celeste and Jesse Forever" makes a great case for having the presence of MORE women at the helm of creating exciting, vibrant, and ultimately realistic female characters who do indeed exist in the 21st century. I think that it is fabulous that the likes of Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo (2011's "Bridesmaids"), Tina Fey (2004's "Mean Girls") and now Jones, have established themselves as extremely sharp writers, providing audiences with a fresh and unrepentant perspective that allows their female characters to be flawed, difficult and have failings that are just as important as their virtues and times of bravery and boldness, i.e. in those films and "Celeste and Jesse Forever" in particular, women are allowed to be human beings and not male wish fulfillment fantasies. And such a shame it is that in 2012, the sight of women as three dimensional human beings in the movies remains a rarity.
Which is even more reason for you to head out and see "Celeste And Jesse Forever" and give it the chance it fully deserves. And let's hope that for whatever potential success this film receives, the cinematic doors will open that much wider for more female creative forces and voices, which can only afford the art and entertainment of the movies to blossom beautifully.
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