Review: They Came Together (2014)

I’m really riding out this Parks and Recreation obsession right now. I’ve moved onto the phase of looking up the entire cast’s filmography and consuming it as quickly as possible. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine…

They Came Together (2014) is a spoof rom com of sorts, starring Amy Poehler and Paul Rudd as a couple telling their friends over dinner one night about the story of how they met. They claim their story is just like a romantic comedy, and so the movie plays out their telling of the events. As we all like to do, many of the details are exaggerated, which is the core of the comedy in this movie.

Molly (Amy Poehler) runs her own boutique sweet store in New York City called Upper Sweet Side, and Joel (Paul Rudd) just so happens to work for a huge corporate business who are trying to shut Molly’s business down. It was hate at first sight!

So, here’s what I loved about this movie. The cast was amazing. It had so many of my favourite TV faces in (Cobie Smulders, Ed Helms, Jack McBrayer, Max Greenfield, Adam Scott, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, just to name a few) that I could have happily watched just to spot them all. The comedy style was right up my street. It almost has a Muppets feel to it, it’s so literal, which I realise will probably put a lot of people off straight away, but honestly, I love that kind of humour. 

Just a really quick example off the top of my head: Mollie is chatting with her colleague at the sweet store and her colleague warns her that Joel is right outside. Mollie gaps in horror and exclaims “But I look like a chimney sweep!” and then we see Mollie, literally dressed as a chimney sweep, with soot on her face and everything. It just tickles me!

I think the humour more than makes up for the predictable plot, but I don’t even think that needs to be apologised for. There’s a line Mollie says very early on in the movie that clearly indicates where the plot is going, so it was deliberate anyway.

My one gripe with They Came Together, and it pains me to say, is that some of the jokes fall so flat they’re quite painful. One minute I was actually crying from laughing so hard, and the next, a joke would fall so flat I winced and kind of wanted to pretend the moment never happened.

I imagine this movie really splits opinions, but my score will rest somewhere in the middle.

Bonus screenshot: