Somebody I Used To Know Review: A Charmingly Performed But All-Too-Familiar Trip Home
It's often said that you can't go home again. Time passes, people and places change and move on — it's never exactly the place that was once left behind. While going home again might be like attempting to step in the same river twice (spoiler: you can't do that, either), no one says you can't try. When Ally (Alison Brie) finds herself in a personal and professional crisis after a decade away from her hometown, she tries to do just that. The trick, as she has to learn, is that no matter how small and still and static the hometown, one has to contend with the fact that it, too, may have moved on, and so did the hearts of the people your memories contain.
"Somebody I Used To Know" is a remarkably different kind of film than director Dave Franco's prior feature, "The Rental," a solid horror-thriller in the increasingly vibrant "homestays are scary, actually" subgenre (along with last year's surprising "Barbarian"). While his new movie is a wide swing away from that territory, Franco shows considerable comfort in the distinct cinematic terrain. Skillful players like Brie, Kiersey Clemons, and Jay Ellis have room to emote and engage with the material. It's at its best when the film showcases character interactions in all their sometimes-tense, often-amusing glory, and Franco builds a world that feels realistically lived in while letting talented performers flourish.
While the movie is primarily a fun watch featuring talented players, for most of its runtime it feels like the narrative elements have been done before so frequently that watching it is in fact like being knee-deep in a rewatch. It does take relevant pivots into fresh territory, but not enough to be truly surprising. The film's ultimate lesson may be that restoring the past is impossible, you should find your own way forward... and ironically that's what the movie seems intent to do. Unfortunately, though it's an enjoyable watch for a number of reasons, it spends too much time being Some Movie I Used To Watch to feel like a new and novel outing.
Smart but insufficient pivots from classic formulas
Long ago, Ally (Alison Brie) left the little-changing and small town she once called home in order to follow her Hollywood dreams. Of course, vacating home meant she also, regrettably, left old flame Sean (Jay Ellis), breaking his heart (and a little bit of her own). Her career dreams became locked into the unscripted world far, far from her noblest documentary ambitions — and Ally no longer knows herself. After her show gets dropped after its third season, she heads back to the home she largely left behind, running into Sean and having a whirlwind of a time spending their first night together in a decade in that lovely talk-until-dawn sort of way. Still reeling from her life being upended, she becomes interested in rekindling that old flame before discovering there's a catch: he's getting married to the younger rocker Cassidy (Kiersey Clemons), whose free-flowing nature represents everything Ally used to be. Allyy sets her sights on sticking around, with dreams of stopping the wedding, to remind Sean what he's been missing.
If that sounds broadly familiar, it's because it is ... "My Best Friend's Wedding" got there first. To be fair, "Somebody I Used To Know" is aware of that fact, even name-dropping the Julia Roberts classic. Originality in rom-coms, like the Devil, is in the details, and those details proceed to elevate and modernize the 1997 film's themes to a considerable extent. As the movie progresses, Cassidy gets a modern, young, and independent arc alongside Ally's own path of self-discovery. They're smart pivots, but somewhat too little and certainly too late.
The writing here certainly boasts strengths. The characters feel largely fleshed-out and lived-in by talented performers, though they don't quite elevate things to the point of feeling truly original as written. A professional woman who long ago lost her freer self, then heads home and reconnects with an old flame? Her competition, a young rebellious woman loaded with free-flowing charisma? Third-act pivot or no, they're familiar trope-laden characters in trope-laden situations. These well-trod situations are intentionally taken into new, updated directions that largely work, but not quite enough to reclaim the overly familiar. It's an enjoyable effort to watch propelled by talented performers, but at the same time, much of the film feels far too eerily familiar, like deja-vu you can't shake.
Strong performances and cast chemistry
"Somebody I Used To Know" may feel like a too-familiar memory, but it's far from an unpleasant one. In Brie's hands, Ally feels more lived-in and nuanced than her trope-adjacent conceptual origins might suggest. She has a proper arc with a satisfying end, and Brie does well to land the character's highs and lows with enough pizazz and charisma to be entertaining and likable even when Ally's making... shall we say, wild choices. Jay Ellis' Sean isn't given the flashiest of material, but the character's old-flame-versus-new-love conundrum is ably portrayed in all its complexity. It's also worth noting that Danny Pudi's Benny is a joy to watch as a measured performance that adds a layer of engaging depth when he's on screen.
The ace in their sleeve is Kiersey Clemons' Cassidy, boasting an effortlessly cool, rich charisma that's engaging to watch. However, the best part of "Somebody I Used To Know," isn't the individual performers, but their interactions and mutual chemistry. Brie's Ally and Pudi's Benny genuinely feel like they've got a rich tapestry of history (no doubt enhanced by the performers' real-life history of collaboration). Moreover, Brie and Clemons have a real on-screen connection together as performers, and it makes the pair's potential charged-but-tense relationship work well: they're at their best when they're together. Some of the finer moments feel rushed through when they could have let the interactions and consequences breathe (streaking through a golf course, or a reconnection between Ally and Benny come to mind), but those interconnected moments are the film's heart.
Altogether, "Somebody I Used To Know" boasts a number of merits. It takes some smart turns in the finale that modernize old tropes and give familiar beats a refreshing upgrade to relevant (but perhaps insufficient) degrees. The dialogue and situations feel real and authentic, and the performers land the material and have strong cast chemistry. At the same time, much of the movie is enjoyable but feels inescapably familiar. It walks too far out in well-trod directions before taking new paths, and when those paths arrive they're not new or wild enough to entirely refresh what's come before. It's ably performed and smartly directed, but in need of either a more novel premise or a wild concluding swing.
"Somebody I Used To Know" premieres February 10th on Amazon Prime Video.
/Film Rating: 7 out of 10