CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER (2012)

Genre: Romance/Comedy
Director: Lee Toland Krieger
Cast: Rashida Jones, Andy Samberg, Chris Messina, Ari Graynor, Will McCormack, Emma Roberts, Elijah Wood, Eric Christian Olsen
Runtime: 1 hr 32 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Coarse Language and Some Sexual References)
Released By: Cathay-Keris Films
Official Website: http://sonyclassics.com/celesteandjesseforever/

Opening Day: 4 October 2012

Synopsis: Celeste (Rashida Jones) and Jesse (Andy Samberg) met in high school, married young and are growing apart. Now thirty, Celeste is the driven owner of her own media consulting firm, Jesse is once again unemployed and in no particular rush to do anything with his life.
Celeste is convinced that divorcing Jesse is the right thing to do -- she is on her way up, he is on his way nowhere, and if they do it now instead of later, they can remain supportive friends. Jesse passively accepts this transition into friendship, even though he is still in love with her. As the reality of their separation sets in, Celeste slowly and painfully realizes she has been cavalier about their relationship, and her decision, which once seemed mature and progressive, now seems impulsive and selfish. But her timing with Jesse is less than fortuitous. While navigating the turbulent changes in their lives and in their hearts, these two learn that in order to truly love someone, you may have to let them go.

Movie Review:

Celeste and Jesse have a problem: they’re rapidly approaching the end of their marriage, but they’re still incredibly infatuated with each other. Promising to remain best friends, they continue to hang out with each other, sharing laughter in the same childish jokes that they probably made when they first met and exchanging furtive glances whenever they speak with fake accents. She’s at the peak of her career, marketing the album of a famous pop star and going on national television to promote her new book. He’s on the less ambitious flip side, barely making money as a freelance artist. So while it’s obvious what makes them connect like so few people do, it’s also clear why they’re getting a divorce.

Celeste and Jesse Forever delivers the split really early and spends the rest of the time exploring its consequences. It then becomes less a curious study of relationship dynamics and more an intimate narrative of what it means to want love that can’t be had anymore. Surely it’s a strange and mutinous decision in a genre far more interested in telling stories of how couples come to happily married ever after and occasionally the emotional journey towards a split. Whilst other movies simply lie idly for the opportunity to offer a take on life after divorce, Celeste and Jesse Forever snatches the issue quickly and boldly. There is still love after divorce, but it’s not the sort we have come to associate with.

At the heart of the movie is Celeste. She’s forced to confront the untimely news that her former husband is going to remarry another woman after Jesse’s one night stand makes him a father. It’s a mighty blow for Celeste: Even if she constantly encourages Jesse to date another girl, Celeste still loves Jesse. Jesse’s determined to move on and start a new life with someone else, but Celeste isn’t quite prepared to deal with the sudden interruption to the modicum of post-split love she has so comfortably attached herself to. She swings herself into aimless dates with other men and spends her time just wallowing in self-pity. Celeste learns a thing or two during the process, but there’s ultimately no conclusion.

If anything, this lack of purpose at the end only means you wouldn’t need to remember every detail and piece the information together to form a larger understanding of the movie. It’s a complicated subject matter that Celeste and Jesse Forever readily breaks down, resulting in a lucid and charming movie that focuses on bits of drama and discovery. The decidedly low key approach may not please everyone, but it’s the way the movie’s intended to be watched. That said, Celeste shares many insightful moments of drama with Riley, the pop star whose album she’s promoting. Each woman has her own set of thorny issues, but it’s the manner in which both eventually come to relate to and support each other that stands out. You suspect that if Celeste had changed her attitude earlier, she’d have better coped with the divorce.

There’re few movies to measure Celeste and Jesse Forever against, which isn’t surprising because it’s one of those movies that reaches for the genre from a new angle. Granted, the epistolary angle isn’t exciting, even boring at times, but it’s yet another sign that mainstream Hollywood is willing to continue discovering in a landscape already saturated with clichés. The low key approach means the movie blazes through the start and middle (dating and marriage), begins at the end (split happens!) and still doesn’t end at the end (Is he really going to remarry!). It takes its time to explore this short period, focusing on brilliant bits of drama and discovery. It’s not a perfect formula, but at least the basic formula is now here for someone else to perfect.

Movie Rating:

(Picking up after the split, the movie proposes a new take on love. It isn’t exciting, but there’re brilliant bits of drama and discovery to be had)

Review by Loh Yong Jian