A Case of You (2013)

(In French, On TV, August 2022) I will systematically watch any movie featuring a writer protagonist, but I don’t have to like all of it. Contrarily to most of my well-adjusted novelist friends, who are able to write from their imagination as creative professionals, most movie authors can’t write anything outside their own personal experience, uniformly suffer from writer’s block and exhibit a wide variety of neuroses. Justin Long’s character in A Case of You (a film he co-wrote) doesn’t stray far from the clichés, even if the film is less about his limits as a writer than being unable to be true to himself in wooing a barista he has a crush on. Much of the film consists of him “hilariously” moulding himself into a different person in order to fit her social media profile preferences, establishing a web of lies over an indistinct core personality. At least the film does eventually confront the issue—although this being a romantic comedy, it eventually works out in the end just because we’re supposed to find those characters likable. The film does a lot of mileage on the likability of its lead, whether it’s Long himself or Evan Rachel Wood as the barista. It’s also sort-of-fun to see actors such as Sam Rockwell, Brendan Fraser, Vince Vaughn or Peter Dinklage in smaller roles—at least it keeps our interest in the middle of some mediocre material. While A Case of You wants to be a hip young-people romantic comedy (as evidenced by its Brooklyn setting, putative age of its characters and pervasive use of social media), it’s surprisingly dull at how it goes about it. The dialogue doesn’t fly particularly high, the protagonist’s insecurities drag on for far too long, and everything comes across as both too cutesy, contrived and obnoxious. Sure, the result is watchable—but there’s a lot of potential left on the table, as the film goes for clichés that seem incompatible with its indie sensibilities. Once, just once, I’d like to see the portrayal of a writer as a seasoned professional, approaching writing as a job that doesn’t require ripping off his own life. But that wouldn’t be within the scope of A Case of You.