Movie Review: I Want You Back Is Real & Romantic
Mentally, thirties is the new twenties because it hard not to feel like you are still in your teens in your twenties. Perhaps, it is our current, socio-economic status that has Vanilla Wafers costing 10 dollars, in inflation, which is making most of us feel …. immature as much as poor. The idea of a grown-up is not someone with a full-time job and roommates to save on rent. It is also not someone who dates the same person for over 5 years without any inkling of marriage. Yet, those are the realities for a lot of people right now: a sort of stability in our instability, especially in terms of relationships. I Want You Back, now on prime, hits the mark by embodying the fear Zennials have in investing emotionally when everything can go down the drain, despite so many years of giving.
Charlie Day’s Peter and Jenny Slate’s Emma are two people that were IN LOVE with Gina Rodriguez’s Anne and Scott Eastwood’s Noah.Their prospective partners were, to them, their absolute future, which is why the ending brings up shock and resentment. Day’s Peter was awesome with Anne’s family and to her career, which, unsurprisingly, makes him believe she would never leave. Meanwhile, Emma and Noah knew everything about each other. Yet, that is part of the problem. Stability is not only in the solidity of someone’s presence but also in their ability to surprise you. Their relationships had hit markers where there was nothing knew, and, for their partners, that means it was time to get someone knew.
Another, other pair of actors would, probably, have come off as super desperate and hitting Kanye levels of stalker. Yet, Slate and Day play on the genuine, even societal fear that if one gets “too old” they are bound to be alone. It is as if passing 35 means you should Geriatric Center under your tinder location. Moreover, there is a deep loneliness that comes over anyone after giving so much of themselves to someone for years. To end a 5 year relationship, inherently means to start another one. To go back in the “dating pool,” try to find and build something with someone else, and hope to God it does not take over 5 years for you to get a potential ring and a baby so you can , finally, give birth at 48. You may laugh, but these are the weird, negative thoughts that pervade women who do want the “movie happy ending” but also want a good relationship with themselves and their man.
The chemistry between Slate and Day thrives off the fact that they push each other to grow. This is the story of not simply two people who got left as much as two people who realized what they had should have been gone long before it did. Knowing someone is great, but loving someone is about always getting to know them.
