Leslie Felperin 

Relationship Status: It’s Complicated review – a barely amusing romcom

Manu Paye plays a monkey-featured commitmentphobe torn between interchangeable women in this bog-standard French comedy, writes Leslie Felperin
  
  

Relationship Status: It's Complicated film still
Not a lot of subtext ... Relationship Status: It’s Complicated Photograph: PR

Not to be confused with the Meryl Streep-Alec Baldwin movie of the same name, this bog-standard French romcom stars local TV comedian Manu Payet as a commitment-shy slacker engaged to one pretty girl (Anaïs Demoustier) but infatuated by another (Emmanuelle Chriqui, from Entourage), although the ladies seem interchangeable given their underwritten roles. The latter woman was Payet’s big crush back in high school before she moved back to the US, so it’s sort of about the obsessions of blokes with the ones who get away, although there’s not a lot of deep subtext. Payet, with his lively, cheeky-boy features, is an amiable enough anchor, and there are a few mildly droll turns from the supporting cast (especially Philippe Duquesne as the fiancee’s kooky father), but as a comedy it’s barely amusing. And is there any more tired device for illustrating growing attraction than a montage sequence where the characters make funny faces for photographs?  

 

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