Celeste and Jesse Forever 3/4: a movie review by James Berardinelli
Celeste and Jesse Forever wants to be marketed as an “anti-romantic comedy,” but, despite its somewhat unconventional storyline, it’s very much about what draws people together into relationships and what pulls them apart.
It explores the reality of true love and the impossibility of love being enough. And, despite flouting Hollywood clichés, it nevertheless manages to be both romantic and funny even though it starts with the separation of the main couple.
The tone established by director Lee Toland Krieger is flippant when it needs to be, ironic when it needs to be, playful when it needs to be, and serious when it needs to be. Toland skates cleanly from comedy to drama and back again without losing his balance. Some of the credit goes to the fresh screenplay by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack (both of whom appear on-screen) but a lot of Celeste and Jesse Forever’s success can be attributed to the chemistry evident between Jones and Andy Samberg, who shows far more subtlety as an actor than one might suspect based on his long Saturday Night Live history.
View the trailer
