A
single heterosexual male in his 40’s name Matt, (played by Ed Helms) decides to
get a surrogate so he can have a baby before he reaches his fifties. When Matt
chooses 26-year-old Anna (played by Patti Harrison) to give birth to his child, Matt doesn’t count on Anna’s personal struggles, his hung-ups and their budding
friendship to be apart of the process.
Director
Nikole Beckwith creates a delightfully hilarious til the end, touching and
truly poignant while jokingly charming film, about platonic love and it’s the
best film I saw at Sundance 2021. Together Together is the de facto Rom-Com
without the intended sex or kissing scenes to acknowledge a relationship.
Together Together is completely connection through circumstance and full stop.
No reason for Matt and Anna to prove there is something between them sexually
after scenes of intimacy, as realistically, intimacy can just be a conversation
and an understanding, nothing else, and that’s okay. Nikole Beckwith decided to
boldly defy and subvert late 2000 Woody Allen/Apatow/Nicole
Holofcener/mumblecore influenced modern relationship films, by pushing back at
mature worship, sex affair worship, and settling down worship of those films, and focusing on the comedy and genuine human bonding
on a respectful, reasonable and equal level.
Together
Together whole heartily utilizes Apatow’s style but for good, without the
unnecessary raunch, pot smoking or psychedelics or verbal abuse towards women, but with the perfect improv, beautifully crisp sun coated direction, classic
character growth montages and well written plotting and character development
with sharp, truthful, insightful dialogue. Ultimately though, Together Together
is smarter than the regular Apatow fair, as is it not orchestrated by a
middle-aged white man who has worked in Hollywood for ages.
With
its cast and script Together Together is particularly a meta commentary on the Rom-Com Apatow Comedy genre, questioning the absence of minority characters
that would brighten the world of those films, as inclusion of the female perspective, confronting problematic gatekeepers such as Woody Allen; who constantly
made it seem okay for older men to date teenagers and for older white men to become interesting
through dating younger women in his movies; which Anna in the film
intelligently touches upon in a great monologue that Patti Harrison genuinely
pulls off. Directors Nikole Beckwith also classically pokes fun at Allen, by taking his style
with the films hilarious opening credits with white font over a black background and
taking back that style from a bummer of a person and reapplying that style to a
better film perspective.
One
could say Matt and Anna don’t get together because in Together Together because
Patti Harrison (who plays Anna) is transgender in real life and maybe Ed Helms
(who plays Matt) wasn’t comfortable having a sex scene with Patti Harrison or
vice versa Patti Harrison wasn’t comfortable, but that’s not the point of the
film, and the take back of having a transgender female playing a non-transgender
female giving birth is perfect. Constantly non-transgender people have been
playing transgender people in films, and Patti Harrison in this role is the
progression that needs to happen in the film industry, and regardless Patti
Harrison as always, is fantastic in Together Together.
Ed
Helms does his best work in Together Together since Jeff, Who Lives At Home
(2011) and The Office (2005), playing a man who realizes he’s way out of his
depth and who’s out of touch with current generations and who believes in child birth as myths, though it’s his own child that a woman is holding for him. Ed helms
perfectly brings his endearing goof ball style with a sense of hurt as Matt
questions why he’s single and why Anna's maybe annoyed with him, which in turn
happens to Anna as well. Ed Helms plays Matt so well, as in scenes where you
can tell Matt is contemplating kissing Anna, but can’t cross that line even
though he has grown to like her. Helms also plays it great in a scene where
he’s immediately jealous of Anna being with someone, even though she’s his
surrogate. And Patti Harrison is a straight up revelation, and the new female Rom-Com lead archetype. Not only being a well known excellent odd ball alt
comedian in various tv shows, but taking her first turn in a Dramedy. Using her
awkward bold angry comedic style to display a lovely intelligent but lonely and
isolated character, who bares a child because they need the money but who also
hides their pain with irate stares of annoyance and with weird and hilarious
encrypted reasoning. Anna is abandoned by her parents due to her choices and
economic situation, in which economics is also quite touched upon in Together
Together as most Rom-Coms either don’t focus on that aspect or try to explain
characters economics in the shallowest way possible. Anna lives in a shoe
box apartment and works at a coffee shop as Matt is an app developer and lives in
a beautiful house, and that all makes sense. Furthermore, Patti Harrison truly
expresses Anna’s pain in a realistically awkward non melodramatic way while bringing Alt comedy to a character who is vastly unseen in these types of movies. Ed Helms
and Patti Harrison are also accompanied by today’s best comedians in supporting
roles played naturally and hilariously by Tig Notaro, Jo Firestone, Anna Konkle
and Julio Torres.
Together
Together is the new Rom-Com aesthetic through and through and will change the
game, influencing comedy directors to come. Together Together asks some of the most interesting questions of our time; Does gender matter? Does intimacy have to involve sex? Are men allowed to want to be single parents? Together Together holds true to what we love in comedy, while giving us what we want in any movie.
Realism and true insight. 10/10.
- Maurice Jones
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