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Not funny enough to be a comedy, not interesting enough to be anything else

By Henrik Schunk on January 18, 2012

To me, this movie hardly qualifies as a comedy, it is never lough out loud hilarious and the laughter is usually a result of anxiety by the celebration of Awkwardness in Cyrus. That being sad, I thought this was quite a good movie, nothing spectacular but an unusual approach to a topic that is barely touched upon, a grown son who refuses to give up his close and intimate relationship with his mother for one of her suitors. One could expect an American white-trash feast of cheap laughs and toilet humour, especially with Jonah Hill and Reilly on board, yet we are spared any profanities and can enjoy a subtle and ginger chamber play about insecurity, togetherness and facing your fear. I felt like the movie never really decided for which team it should play, sometimes it lined itself up for a great comic showdown (the wedding etc.) but nothing came of it and whenever the movie was in danger of becoming a hollow rom-com, Jonah Hill made a delightful mess of it with his inarguable big comic talent . All in all, I felt like the film did not really came to full bloom and while I see what they tried to do, a sloppy script, too uninvolved direction and a stale performance by Reilly stopped the quality meter rising half way. HX