“Dying alone is not that bad,” declares a drunk Jenny Slate in Amazon Studios’ new rom-com I Want You Back. “Like, why do you want someone to watch you die? That’s, like, actually embarrassing.” Her new friend and partner in heartbreak, played by Charlie Day, agrees: “That’s right, dying alone is actually pretty sweet ‘cause you’re all alone and no one’s bothering you.”
Of course, nobody is buying this half-hearted pep talk, which is interspersed with clips of the duo belting out breakup songs like Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know” and Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn.” But it’s this sweet, heartwarming, and, yes, totally predictable dynamic that drives the solid new film, directed by Jason Orley and released on Friday, just in time for Valentine’s Day weekend.
Slate plays Emma, a lovable mess working as a receptionist at an orthodontist’s office and, at 32, living with two college students (“They’re pre-law, they’re practically lawyers,” she reasons). Day’s Peter is the classic nice, if slightly boring, guy who’s ready to settle down and start a family.
They’re complete strangers until they meet in the stairwell of their shared office building and discover they’ve both recently been left by their partners for other people. Emma’s boyfriend Noah (Scott Eastwood) is a personal trainer who’s fed up with trying to correct Emma’s iron deficiency, so he ditches her for a pretty, put-together bakery owner (Clark Backo). Peter, meanwhile, is dumped by Anne (Gina Rodriguez), his girlfriend of six years, when she decides he’s holding her back from a glamorous life as an artist. Within days, Anne is posting flirty Instagram pics with pretentious drama teacher Logan (Manny Jacinto).
Hilariously branding themselves “The Sadness Sisters”—even though, as Peter points out, the name sounds like they’re Diane Keaton and Meryl Streep in a Broadway play—they make a pact to help each other get their exes back. Peter will befriend Noah and try to convince him he doesn’t want to be tied down with his shiny new beau, while Emma will seduce Logan by volunteering to work on his middle school production of Little Shop of Horrors, even though she doesn’t have a kid in the play.
It’s the perfect setup for all your standard rom-com hijinks—loud overheard sex, experimentation with party drugs, a brutally awkward threesome, and increasingly elaborate lies that are played off as harmless in the movie, but in real life would read as borderline sociopathic. The lengths to which the Sadness Sisters go in pursuit of each other’s happy endings are absurd in their own way, with Emma performing a weepy duet of “Suddenly Seymour'' with a sixth grader and Peter jumping off a roof into a hot tub while a tattooed teen played by Pete Davidson eggs him on.
There are only a handful of laugh-out-loud moments, and the film lags a bit in the second half. Still, it works because Slate and Day give such convincing, touchingly funny performances. Slate especially shines in scenes where she acts as an unlikely mentor to a precocious, cigarette-smoking 12-year-old with a troubled home life. Consider this an official plea to all directors: Put Jenny Slate in every movie ASAP!
Anyone who’s ever watched even five minutes of a movie before can guess how I Want You Back ends. Montages are set to old romantic standards, like Nat King Cole’s “Unforgettable” and Tony Bennett’s rendition of “The Glory of Love.” One of the supporting characters is a beautiful woman who makes pies for a living. Someone gets punched at a wedding. It all feels familiar, but honestly, that’s why people watch these types of movies: to be comforted, to laugh a little, to take a break from thinking too hard about things, to pair with a glass of wine and takeout on a Sunday night. Sometimes, that’s enough.
