Making his feature debut, director and writer Tom Gormican’s first film That Awkward Moment aims to explore that hazy moment in every relationship where the couple must decide where the relationship is going or, as Zac Efron’s character Jason calls it, the “so” moment.
In That Awkward Moment, best friends Mikey (Michael B. Jordan), Daniel (Miles Teller), and Jason are reunited on the single men front after Mikey finds out his wife wants a divorce. It’s at that moment Daniel and Jason explain how single life works, that you have to build a roster of woman to rotate through and, when they ask “so where is this going?” that’s when you know to cut it off and move on. The three make a deal to stay single together but soon each of them finds a woman whom they’re more than attracted to but refuse to tell each other. As you can imagine there are many highs to each refusing to believe they’re possibly getting into relationships but, as you can probably figure out, conflict does eventually emerge in your standard romantic comedy fashion.
As the trailers, cast and rating suggest, one might think that when you sit down to watch this film you’re going to get an Apatow style comedy, ideally chock full of laughs, but don’t be fooled, That Awkward Moment is most certainly a male romantic comedy disguised as a raunchy relationship comedy and does a great job of tricking you into initially thinking otherwise. It actually feels like every romantic comedy you’ve seen before except “bro’d up” so that guys will see the film for raunchy jokes while girls can go to see good looking guys on screen becoming vulnerable to their emotions and proving that playas can fall in love too.
When the film first starts we find out that Jason is the cocky, sly and good looking one, Mikey is the good looking nice guy and Daniel is the mediocre looking funnyman. It makes complete sense that Jason is the one who first meets a woman, Ellie (Imogen Poots) and becomes intrigued by everything about her. When she eventually meets Jason’s friends we discover that she is every guy’s fantasy, not only is she an attractive woman, but she likes whiskey and is good at Halo. I nearly proposed to the screen when I saw that and the same reaction as Jason’s buds.
As far as the film itself, the movie’s just ok and works well for an under 30 date movie for established couples, though wastes a lot of its potential. There weren’t that many laughs and Gormican sure made it a point to divulge the “secrets” of the single man “roster” for woman to learn how many guys work. Miles Teller steals every scene he’s in because, for a majority of the film, he’s the only one that really garners any laughs. Sure, Michael B Jordon and Zac Efron get one here and there, but most of the dialogue driven laughs come from Teller who thrives in the asshole friend role. Thankfully they are all fun to watch because they’re all charismatic and have a lot of great chemistry on screen.
That Awkward Moment is a movie for men looking to find that same sort of escape that almost all women have with their beloved, and usually painstakingly torturous, rom-coms. It follows the same basic formula that we’ve seen before but uses popular young actors and R-rated jokes to pull the male audience in. I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy some of it but, just like with the female targeted rom-coms, this one takes aim right at your heart and drives that mushy ending straight into you come the end of the film.
Rating: A male rom-com disguised as a raunchy relationship comedy that mostly misses its mark (5.7/10)
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