Feb 16, 2018
Today’s movie is “When We First Met” (2018), the romantic comedy written by John Whittington and directed by Ari Sandel. The film follows Noah (Adam Devine) who has been hiding his feelings for the past three years from his friend Avery (Alexandra Daddario), who is currently engaged to Ethan (Robbie Amell). After getting wasted at their engagement party, Noah discovers a photo booth that transports him back in time to the day he first met Avery to try and win her heart.
I judge most romantic comedies by the relationships on screen, not just between the couples, but also between friends and enemies, and within families. I follow that with looking at the premise and seeing what the film has to say about relationships, along with the balance of romance and comedy. Some films focus more on the drama, while others focus more on the comedy, which is the route for “When We First Met” (2018).
This film is a victim of its own structure. Noah jumping back and forth between the two time periods creates a predictive setup/punchline cycle. I could anticipate too much during the film, although Adam Devine’s effective performance and some deft one-liners help make up the difference. The constant reuse of the various sets, while completely unavoidable given the premise, doesn’t help with the predictive quality of the comedy.
The supporting cast feels underdeveloped, particularly Noah’s friend Max (Andrew Bachelor) and Avery’s friend Carrie (Shelley Hennig). The alternate reality versions of the characters feel ingenuous, almost contrived to hit the punchlines created by the situation. And given a shallow premise like Noah being in the completely fictitious “friendzone”, even his eventual epiphany feels empty, since it’s the only possible conclusion.
“When We First Met” (2018) is a fun, if predictable comedy. I feel it suffers a bit from the resurgence in “eternal recurrence” films, most recently “Happy Death Day” (2017) and “Before I Fall” (2017), which are already treading ground made famous by “Groundhog Day” (1993). Fans of shallow, somewhat explicit humor will enjoy the film, finding at least a few laughs, if not a high quality film.
Rotten Tomatoes: 56%
Metacritic: 35
One Movie Punch: 6.0/10
“When We First Met” (2018) is not rated and is currently streaming on Netflix.