In 1989, When Harry Met Sally asked viewers whether men and women can be just friends. Twenty-three years later, Celeste and Jesse Forever has the same question at its core, but with a decidedly more cynical outlook.
When we first meet the titular couple, they’ve already broken up and are planning to divorce. Yet, they spend all their time together and share the kind of inside jokes and rituals that are incomprehensible to anyone outside their relationship. Strangest of all, they still exchange I love you’s.
Their friends think its weird, but Celeste (Rashida Jones) and Jesse (Andy Samberg) are determined to have the perfect divorce and stay best friends.
It’s an original enough premise, but the film quickly gets off track and becomes something much more conventional and less subversive than it seems to want to be. After their attempts to be friends peter out, whats left is a familiar story; a successful woman (who in typical Hollywood convention, must be a control freak) breaks up with a jobless man-child because he refuses to grow-up. Anyone who’s not living under a rock can guess that, he gets a new girlfriend and becomes a more mature and responsible person. Of course, his ex rapidly falls apart, decides she’s made a mistake and wonders if it’s too late to get back together.
It’s a familiar story, yes, but the journey is thoroughly enjoyable the whole way through. Celeste and Jesse Forever is a well-constructed film that isn’t afraid to give the characters moments to breathe.
What the film gets so right are the carefully observed emotions; the loneliness of sitting alone and hearing laughter in another room, the pain of awkward first meetings, awkward sex, IKEA furniture assembly and the recent trend of pun Halloween costumes.
Though sometimes strained, the humour is both honest and familiar and and watching it feels more like remembering that really funny thing your friend said once than watching calculated jokes. More importantly, the film maintains that elusive level of quirkiness that doesn’t seem forced.
Some of this is thanks to Rashida Jones, who co-wrote the script. As Celeste, she gives a star-making performance that is smart, opinionated, and imbued with more than a little screwball humour. Celeste and Jesse Forever showcases Jones’s talents as both a comedic and dramatic actress and she manages to balance them beautifully. In the hands of an actress with less talent or charm, Celeste could feel like a caricature, but Jones’ deft portrayal allows her to feel human as she deterioates.
Andy Samberg’s portrayal of slacker Jesse definitely rings true. Samberg gives him an awkward energy and out of breath over eagerness that contrasts well with Jones’s self-assured Celeste.
They have enough chemistry between them that the viewer roots for them to be together, yet the characters are fleshed out enough that its easy to see why they shouldn’t be.
In the end, Celeste and Jesse Forever is not really the story of the break-up of a marriage, but of Celeste’s journey back to herself. It’s a film that challenges our notion of a failed marriage as a failure.
