‘Isn’t it Romantic’: As Unromantic As it is Terrible [Review]

I have a guilty pleasure when it comes to romantic comedies, I’ll admit it. I’ve seen 50 First Dates, My Best Friend’s Wedding, and Bridget Jones’s Diary more times than I’d like to admit. I’ve largely enjoyed Rebel Wilson’s performance across the 1st and 3rd Pitch Perfect movies (let’s all ignore the second one even existed). In Isn’t it Romantic, I was really hoping for a confluence of elements to come together to have a fun time with. I was hoping for romantic comedy’s equivalent to Airplane. Unfortunately, this film is something that makes Airplane 2 seem positively inspired.

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Wilson plays Natalie, a successful architect living in New York city that eschews romantic comedies because they do nothing but set unrealistic expectations. She has a moonstruck co-worker, Josh (played by Adam DeVine), who she doesn’t recognize is interested in her. She winds up being mugged in the subway and during the altercation hits her head and winds up in a coma/dream world that’s filled with every Rom-Com trope you can imagine. She has to go on the traditional genre voyage of self-discovery and realization.

It’s frustrating because the idea could have been fun in the hands of someone who could have made the film feel like the humor was done from a place of fondness for the genre.

But if writers Erin Cardillo, Dana Fox, and Katie Silberman have any love for the genre, it does not translate to the screen. Everything comes through a veneer of loathing and derision. Natalie spends the first half hour putting rom-coms down so adroitly that by the time we jump to the fantasy world, even if we were to enjoy it, we’ve had it beaten into us that we should be ashamed for doing so.

It does have some cute jokes, but the stereotype gay-best friend who’ll always appear to help our heroine in her times of need feeds so dated now that it feels awkward. If anyone puts in a good performance it’s DeVine, who if he could get his agent to land him a role that doesn’t force him to play the office goober he’d be actually taken far more seriously. Wilson does the part she’s handed, but it’s masked between vapid set-pieces.

Making their target audience entirely self-conscious for loving the genre, perhaps wasn’t the best way to try to have tried to connect with it.

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Isn’t It Romantic opens on Friday February 15th 2019.