In They Came Together, Amy Poehler and Paul Rudd take the lead as Molly and Joel, a couple who meet-cute while attending a Halloween party thrown by mutual friends. They're both dressed up as Ben Franklin, bald cap and all, but they're too busy being annoyed by one another to see that they are clearly "meant to be". When Molly, who owns a small, independent candy store, finds out that Joel works for Candy Systems & Research (basically, "Big Candy"), her hatred for him grows stronger. Can these two crazy kids see past their differences to make a love connection?
If the premise of this movie sounds like a stupid romantic comedy, that's because They Came Together is a parody of a stupid romantic comedy in the vein of Airplane and Austin Powers (only not as clever). They Came Together is moderately funny, but rather unfocused. There were some truly laugh-out-loud moments (especially in the rare scenes where the film veered toward offensiveness or absurdity, more on that later) scattered among a mostly chuckle-inducing sweet film.
The film's strength lies in its cast. Rudd and Poehler are reliably funny as the leads, but the secondary characters--particularly Christopher Meloni as Joel's boss at Candy Systems and Melanie Lynskey and Teyonah Parris as Molly's gal pals--really round out the movie and its myriad of rom-com tropes.
About those tropes: most of the jokes were a bit one-the-nose in their attempts to satirize romantic comedies. Poehler's character, for example, is a huge klutz who's always falling down, and Joel starts the film in a relationship with a woman who is beautiful "but a little cold" (played gamely by Cobie Smulders) and obviously not right for him.
However, director David Wain managed to surprise me a couple times by throwing in a bizarrely sexual or scatological joke when you would least expect it. A gag that involves a character stuck in a tight superhero costume at a Halloween party was completely out of place, but also one of the funniest scenes in the movie.
The thing that is a bit disappointing is that I know David Wain is capable of better comedy. A veteran of the sketch comedy troupe The State, Wain directed Wet Hot American Summer (also a parody, this time of summer camp movies) which is leaps and bounds more clever than They Came Together. One of his more recent films, Wanderlust (which also stars Rudd), is funnier as well. So even though They Came Together isn't *bad*, I just know it could have been better.
Given the awesome cast, They Came Together is worth renting on a rainy day. And obviously, since humor is highly subjective, you might find the movie much funnier than I did. But if subversion is what you're after, you won't find (much) of it in this film.
3.5 out of 5 stars
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