Director: Jim Field Smith
Screenwriters: Sean Anders, John Morris
Director of photography: Jim Denault
Production designer: Clayton Hartley
Costume designer: Molly Maginnis
Music: Michael Andrews
Cast: Jay Baruchel, Alice Eve, T.J. Miller, Mike Vogel, Nate Torrence, Krysten Ritter, Geoff Stults, Lindsay Sloane
(105 min. 16SLN)

The Bottom Line.

I sat down to watch this film expecting the usual slacker comedy, in which a bunch of losers, stuck in rubbishy jobs, spend their time talking dirty about sex, playing mean pranks and fantasising about girls who are “out of their league”. That’s what half the film is all about, but the other half, features a lively and intelligent performance from Jay Baruchel. He is backed by a charming performance from Alice Eve, and together they lift the film to another level and prove that some nerds actually do have what it takes change their lives around.   

Jay Baruchel as Kirk

Main Review.

Any film in which we see buddies giving each other hands-on tips on how to trim their pubic hair and to shave their testicle-sacks does not inspire confidence. The film features a lot more comedy that is played out at that level. It could easily have just have sunk without a trace into its own smut. Surprisingly screenwriters Sean Anders and John Morris manage to create a genuinely sweet and affecting romance in and around the macho posing and lavatory comedy that is the stock-in-trade of so many such comedies.

It involves Kirk (Jay Baruchel) a skinny guy with a face that is not handsome but it is expressive and humorous. Under all his anxious, brash ways, he’s actually pretty smart and interesting but he’s trapped in a Neanderthal family where he is always the brunt of the jokes. He once had a girlfriend but she ditched him for a muscle-bound, meathead and Kirk is more or less stuck with a bunch of slackers and who are his supposed “best friends”.

Alice Eve as Molly

These are the guys who take comfort in their own failure and they decide that if life is handing them a bad deal, it gives them permission to sink ever deeper into their own sloth. This all changes when Kirk, who works with his “posse” at an airport, encounters Molly (Alice Eve) – blonde, successful and gorgeous. The surprise is that she is also nice and when Kirk helps her out of a situation, she forms a friendship with him. He is so lacking in self-esteem and confidence that he nearly makes a hash of things, but Molly understands what is going on and they form a really sweet “odd couple”.

As soon as that happens, Kirk’s jealous vindictive ex-girl-friend tries to stage a comeback and his buddies don’t help matters either. But in spite of that Kirk finds the confidence and initiative that he thought he had lost forever, and Molly is startled to find a guy who is able to give her the space to come to terms with her own issues.   

There’s no denying that “She’s Out of My League” is a formula rom-com, complete with raunchy sex-jokes, but Jay Baruchel does such a good job of making Kirk real and likeable, that we care about him almost as often as we laugh at him and it adds up one of the cutest - if not the most original - date movies we have seen in ages

Other Views

“St. Louis Post-Dispatch”, Joe Holleman

If all you want from a movie are generous doses of laughs and some tender moments, She’s Out Of My League should be right up your alley.

“The Globe and Mail (Toronto)”,  Rick Groen

You don’t need to root for the best movies and you don’t want to root for the worst. But, occasionally, along comes a picture so nearly good that you dearly wish it were better. Welcome to She’s Out of My League, where the rooting interest is strong but so is the frustration.

“The Hollywood Reporter”, Frank Scheck

What threatened to be yet another routine exercise in raunchiness instead turns out to be a sweet, charming, hilariously funny love story that could emerge as a sleeper hit.

“USA Today”, Claudia Puig

Plausibility aside, the key to making the scenario work is comedy. Much can be forgiven if it delivers enough laughs. That’s the main problem here. It’s short on clever humor and big on convention and formula.