Movie Reviews

Will Henry (Flght Of The Conchords’ Jermaine Clement) is a graphic novelist/sad sack whose life gets turned upside down when he walks in on his longtime girlfriend Charlie (Stephanie Allynne )and some other dude at their twins’ fifth birthday party. It’s a pretty awkward scene. Then again, those are some pretty awkward circumstances.

Flash forward one year later. Will has moved into a small apartment in Astoria, teaches a comic book art class and gets to be the fun parent during the weekends he gets to spend with his kids. But then things change when Charlie asks if Will can keep the kids for a couple of weeks, something he isn’t really ready for. Plus one of his students wants to set him up with her mother. The two of them don’t hit it off right away, mostly because she is kinda already seeing someone, but also because she is a literary snob who doesn’t think comics are art. But as things go in these kinds of movies, you know we haven’t seen the last of her yet. Can you say rebound?

Written and directed by Jim Strouse, People Places Things follows Will as he somehow tries to juggle love, life and parenthood. If that sounds familiar, then that’s because you have seen it in countless other romantic comedies. But that’s okay, one more won’t hurt you. The difference here is that I didn’t really care about Will. He acts like a bumbling idiot most of the time and you half expect him to trip over his own two feet every five seconds.

Throughout most of its 86-minute runtime, People Places Things is enjoyable enough though. The classroom scenes are pretty good and Will’s daughters steal about every scene they are in. It’s not perfect, but there is enough to like to keep things interesting. Too bad the ending pulls the whole thing a couple of notches.