Man Up

What hell hath Richard Cur­tis wrought? As the peren­ni­al chron­i­cler of mid­dle-class rela­tion­ship trau­ma, the Black­ad­der scribe has prac­ti­cal­ly defined the British rom-com since unleash­ing his mas­ter­piece, Four Wed­dings and a Funer­al, upon defence­less cin­e­ma-goers back in 1994. Since then, count­less pre­tenders have sought to dethrone Cur­tis and lay claim to his undu­ly polite, slight­ly fum­bling, flop­py fringed crown. Films like Tama­ra Drewe, Chalet Girl, or last year’s dis­tinct­ly dis­lik­able Love, Rosie, they came and went like awk­ward kiss­es in the rain.

Sure­ly the time has come for the next big thing in home­grown sen­ti­men­tal­ism to take on the Com­ic Relief guru at his own game and win? Man Up doesn’t quite cap­ture Cur­tis’ cas­tle, but it makes a half decent attempt of storm­ing the ram­parts. The ridicu­lous­ly ami­able Lake Bell (rock­ing a Brit accent like a nat­ur­al) plays a jour­nal­ist called Nan­cy, a chron­ic sin­gle­ton on the verge of an emo­tion­al cat­a­clysm. Fate inter­venes, and while on the train to her par­ents’ for­ti­eth wed­ding anniver­sary, Nan­cy gets caught in an unwel­come con­ver­sa­tion with a pris­sy, self-help lov­ing stranger on the way to a blind date.

Sure enough, upon arrival at Water­loo Sta­tion, Nan­cy finds her­self shar­ing a con­fus­ing encounter with the stranger’s pre­sumed hook-up, a mar­ket­ing chump called Jack (Simon Pegg). Seiz­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty, Nan­cy assumes a brand new iden­ti­ty and ends up tak­ing out Jack for her­self. There’s only one prob­lem: he may well be per­fect. Noc­tur­nal Date Night-meets-After Hours shenani­gans ensue.

This is the lat­est big screen offer­ing by direc­tor Ben Palmer, whose stock-in-trade is the TV sit­com. The screen­play is by sit­com writer Tess Mor­ris. There was once an excep­tion­al­ly short-lived US sit­com with the exact same title. This isn’t that, thank good­ness, but that doesn’t stop Man Up look­ing, sound­ing and feel­ing like a sit­com at times. Specif­i­cal­ly, it feels like an extend­ed Christ­mas spe­cial, though not nec­es­sar­i­ly in a bad way. So while the film is a very nuts-and-bolts affair for a sig­nif­i­cant chunk of its breezy run­ning time, a healthy smat­ter­ing of decent jokes, iden­ti­fi­able char­ac­ters, and win­ning per­for­mances from Bell and Pegg sig­nif­i­cant­ly enhance its chances. Oh, and there’s even a lit­tle bit of smut, too, most­ly at the hands of Rory Kin­n­ear, one of the best stage actors in the coun­try, here reduced to play­ing the story’s token sleazeball.

For Pegg, this rep­re­sents a come­back of sorts, fol­low­ing a string of duds which bot­tomed-out with the dire smarm aria, Hec­tor and the Search for Hap­pi­ness. He’s absolute­ly fine here, but the movie hangs on Bell, and she wears it tremen­dous­ly. A glo­ri­ous­ly charis­mat­ic, fun­ny, and warm pres­ence, it’s a treat to see Bell head­line a pic­ture that pro­vides ample oppor­tu­ni­ty to charm. Man Up isn’t per­fect, but that’s a minor detail when you’re deal­ing with major tal­ent. It could be love, actually.