‘I Want You Back’ Review: Charlie Day & Jenny Slate Lack Chemistry In An Unfocused RomCom

An unlikely rom-com duo if ever there was one, this Valentine’s Day, Charlie Day and Jenny Slate team up in an attempt to win back their respective exes in Amazon Prime Video’s I Want You Back. Directed by Jason Orley, the film follows Peter (Day) and Emma (Slate), two happily taken strangers who find themselves unceremoniously dumped on the same weekend. After a chance meeting at their shared office building, the heartbroken singles hatch a plan: Emma will seduce Peter’s ex-girlfriend (Gina Rodriguez)’s new boyfriend (Manny Jacinto). At the same time, Peter befriends Emma’s ex-boyfriend (Scott Eastwood) in a hair-brained bid to break the new couples up and win their respective partners back. Though the film boasts an impressive comedic roster and delivers a surprising number of thoughtful, emotional beats, its aimless storytelling and tonal confusion result in a middling end product that ends up more forgettable than anything else.

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In some respects, “I Want You Back” is a refreshing subversion of the kind of morally dubious antics that populated rom-coms of the early 2000s: Emma and Peter’s complicated tactics to win back their partners feel right at home with the kind of goofy antics the genre used to be famous for, but in a much-needed change of pace, the film is never 100% fully on board with justifying their actions. Instead, “I Want You Back” is willing to take the time not only to explore who Emma and Peter are as individuals outside their romantic relationships but also to explore the new romantic lives of their partners. Eastwood’s gym bro Noah and Rodriguez’s teacher/aspiring actress Anne may be a little like caricatures, but they’re also not merely static stock characters for Emma and Peter to win back — they’re fully realized characters with agency and new compelling romantic relationships to boot. 

The legitimacy of their new relationships (especially Emma’s ex-boyfriend Noah’s new romance) in turn prompts Emma and Peter to question their deception and attempts to break them up, especially when Peter forms a genuine friendship with Noah, who takes on the role of his personal trainer. Eastwood isn’t exactly known for his comedic chops, but he holds his own remarkably well alongside a comedic juggernaut like Charlie Day, and the two have a remarkable amount of chemistry — making for a charming duo that’s easy to root for, and thus all the more heart wrenching when Peter’s deception is eventually revealed. 

Unfortunately, the same chemistry doesn’t extend to Emma’s half of the narrative, where she volunteers to help out with an elementary school play (“Little Shop of Horrors,” a remarkably violent choice for preteens) as an excuse to get close to Logan (Jacinto), Peter’s ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend. Though Jacinto certainly has the capacity for comedic greatness, his character Logan is a frustratingly uninspired high-brow artistic wannabe. Neither lends itself well to comedic hijinks nor is compelling enough for us to care about him as an individual character. Gina Rodriguez’s Anne fares somewhat better — of all the exes/new romantic partners, she feels the most realistically written and acted — but her role again is lacking in the comedic beats and charm that Eastwood’s character boasts.

The saving grace of Slate’s half of the film is Emma’s unexpected friendship with one of the students in the play — a misfit named Trevor who is forced to help out in the “Little Shop” prop department after acting up in class. When she’s not bumbling her way through her seduction of Logan, Emma is forging an earnest bond with Trevor — guiding him through navigating a tumultuous home life and becoming a genuine friend and confidant. It’s an unexpected narrative development for what seems like a paint-by-numbers hijinks-infused romantic comedy. Still, the subplot goes a long way to help elevate Emma as a character, picking up some of the slack where her interactions with Logan and Anne falter. 

When it comes to the leads themselves, however, Day and Slate (though enormously funny and talented as individuals) don’t quite have the requisite chemistry to work as a comedic duo, a potential romantic pairing, or even a believable friendship — especially when they’ve both found more genuine friends in Noah and Trevor. The film’s strange pacing also makes it difficult to get invested in their friendship — speeding through the early formation of their bond in a cliche karaoke-heavy montage and then having them separate on their individual break-up missions for a majority of the film’s runtime. 

This lack of chemistry, in turn, makes the last act falter hard — the film loses almost all steam with 25 minutes still left to go, and though the way that Emma and Peter face comeuppance for their deceptive plots is an aforementioned subversion that’s easy to appreciate when the credits roll the ending feels more murky and unsatisfying as opposed to deliberately subversive. While Charlie Day and Scott Eastwood are brilliant as an unlikely duo, and Jenny Slate’s friendship/mentorship with Luke David Blumm’s Trevor is certainly compelling, “I Want You Back” is both narratively and tonally unfocused, resulting in an end product that likely won’t make anyone’s re-watch list. [C+]