I Want You Back

Directed by Jason Orley, I Want You Back follows two recently-dumped strangers (Charlie Day’s Peter and Jenny Slate’s Emma) as they meet and conspire to sabotage the new relationships of their affable exes (Gina Rodriguez’s Anne and Scott Eastwood’s Noah). It’s familiar subject matter that is, for the most part, employed to watchable (and sporadically hilarious) effect by Orley, as the filmmaker, armed with a screenplay by Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger, delivers a predominantly agreeable romantic comedy that benefits substantially from the charismatic work of its two stars – with Day and Slate’s predictably engaging efforts going a long way towards smoothing over the various bumps and lulls within the padded-out narrative. (It doesn’t hurt, either, that the picture boasts a handful of laugh-out-loud funny bits and set-pieces, including a terrific interlude wherein Noah acts as Peter’s wingman during a night out.) There’s little doubt, then, that I Want You Back‘s overall impact is dulled, to put it mildly, by an almost ludicrously overlong running time of 111 minutes, as the movie’s midsection and second half are, as a result, littered with needlessly prolonged stretches and segments that wreak havoc on the already-tenuous momentum and diminish the impact (and effectiveness) of the feel-good finale – with the end result a decent-enough romcom that’s rarely as compelling or ingratiating as its two lead performances.

**1/2 out of ****