After a night of vigorous coitus, Imogen Poots’ Ellie giggles resentment for not having made Zac Efron’s Jason wait longer for sex. He replies with “I was going to make you wait too. But then I realised, I’m a dude.” With that, we get a solid idea on the film’s perspective on modern masculinity, with characters not above lying and manipulation in order to “punch a card”. That quality makes them ideally suited to committing to stay single alongside a pal who’s suddenly split from his wife.
Traditionally, tiresome rom-coms rely on the unrealistic idiocy of their characters in order to generate both conflict and comedy. However, thanks to AWOD’s focus on the current “selfish” generation of 20-something men, there’s a feeling of authenticity to their moronic ideals – it seems sadly real when Jason, given the chance to be a decent human being, becomes evasive because “that means we’re dating.” The boys’ expletive R-rated banter furthers the genuineness to decent comedic effect, though often undermined by some misplaced farcical gags that hit-or-miss.
The film’s smart enough not to naively damn casual sex, reserving the comments “stupid” and “soulless” for the horrible way these dudes go about acquiring it. So it’s a puzzling disappointment that the conclusion seems indifferent about its initial commentary on the metro man. Jason’s win-the-girl-back monologue boils down to “Please ignore everything I did” while Mikey (Michael B. Jordan), who serves as the moral counterweight, gets a subplot that’s too light to balance out the other two. Meanwhile, Daniel (Miles Teller) solves his problems by getting run over by a taxi.
‘Are We Officially Dating?’ Movie Times
