It’s Wednesday, I know, so shoot me….
I did end up watching Man Up last night with Simon Pegg on Netflicks. It is a BBC rom-com with newcomer to me Lake Bell.
The premise is simple enough, a quirky, single, 34yo woman encouraged by her older sister to “get out there” and date rides a train to London with a young woman, who carries this Self Help book. The young woman is supposed to meet a blind date. Lake has the book and mistakenly runs into Pegg and they have their awkward first exchanges. They are good here, and have some chemistry, which is all important. She gets better looking as the movie goes on, as her personality comes out and she is more endearing. You care about her, and hope for better circumstances for her. And I laughed and enjoyed (for the most part) the scenarios that they put these two through – including the inevitable scene where she must confess that she is not his blind date, and she “stole him away”. These are people who are flawed, and make mistakes and act awkwardly in awkward situations. I do believe that the ending goes too far, and it didn’t really need to. I would have been satisfied with less, and if you see it you’ll hopefully better understand what I mean.
Pegg is good and is convincing, and plays well off her. I didn’t know her before but I do hope to see her again. Not everyone has to look like Margot Robbie to have a film career, heck look at Melissa McCarthy coming out with yet another silly movie (taking the thrown from Adam Sandler). Anyway, happy viewing.
Mondays With Robbie 