[TWO STARS]
Usually, when a movie is named after a song I go: “Bleh.” But this film is named after a very good Joni Mitchell song, so that’s less of a Bleh. But hold on—A Case of You isn’t completely blehless. No, not by a long shot. The bleh of this film comes from the plot itself.
Justin Long plays a hapless, romantically confused young writer who falls in love with a girl. And wouldn’t you know it (and God bless the digital age!) he finds her Facebook profile, learns all about what she likes, and then sculpts himself into her ideal man. Sound familiar? Yea, that’s because this is approximately 75% of rom coms. Person A wants Person B so Person A changes himself into Person C but when Person B finds out Person C is actually Person A there’s drama and then it turns out Person B really liked Person A better all along. It’s sweet really. A “be yourself” sort of message.
That it’s been done a million times aside, my main problem with these kinds of stories is: would Person B ever have given Person A the time of day if Person A hadn’t been Person C? Probably not. So the subtext is that there truly is a reason to not be who you are—it gets you in the door. Is that actually good message? I dunno. I suppose in some sense it’s realistic. But all that aside, this plot has been done so many fucking times I don’t even care about this movie.
A Case of You gets two stars. And I’m only being this generous because I really like Joni Mitchell. Also because Peter Dinklage is in it.
Trailerbites 