Posted on: February 10, 2014 Posted by: John B. Moore Comments: 0

It’s a bit surprising this indie romantic comedy didn’t get bigger buzz on its initial outing. The leads (Justin Long and Evan Rachel Wood), while not exactly major box office draws are still pretty big names for a small budget film, and the story is quirky without being overly odd and sweetly romantic enough to have  broad appeal.

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Long (who also wrote the screenplay and produced) plays Sam, a young novelist stuck churning out quickie books for just-released movies and Wood plays Birdie, the barista at his local coffee shop he has a distant crush on.  In only-in-the-movies fashion, Sam uses Birdie’s Facebook profile to find her likes and then attempts to become her perfect mate simply by taking up everything thing she seemingly adores. This eventually culminates in the predictable, yet surprisingly still entertaining, moment when Sam is exposed.

This movie shouldn’t work. The premise could have easily turned into a series of dumb mainstream movie clichés. Add to that an obscene amount of distracting cameos by folks like Peter Dinklage (completely wasted in this film); Brandon Frazier and Vince Vaughn (clearly Long just emptied his rolodex for this one). But the writing is refreshingly original and the chemistry between Wood and Long is hard to resist. Despite some obvious flaws, the movie still manages to endear thanks to charming actors.

A Case of You/91 mins./MPI Home Video/2014

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