There are two things I’m sure of in this world. One of them is none of your business, but the other is that there’s no quantifiable difference between good Improv and bad Improv.
This is important to remember because the lead characters of I’m Obsessed With You (But You’ve Got To Leave Me Alone) are in fact, in an Improv group, and I have no idea if they’re supposed to be good at it or not. Because this was my entryway into the film, I became stuck on this question, possibly far out of proportion to the movies actual plot. I guess I just needed to know if I was watching the story of some talents who were being unjustly slighted, or a bunch of corny hacks that deserved to fail.
Having watched the movie, the results are… inconclusive.
Based on a play of the same name, written by Genevieve Adams, who happens to also star as our de facto protagonist Keri, the movie begins by eulogizing the main characters, an Improv group calling themselves Formal Fridays. Voice over memorials are a running motif in the film, the increasingly absurd and fictitious personal histories and causes of death showing their deep connection with one another and their staggering levels of stylized indie quirk.
(Apologies in advance: I will probably be using the word ‘quirk’ a lot here…)
As these things usually go, you’d need a road map to decipher all the intricate entwinements and personal dramas that plague the group. They plan to take their patented brand of comedy (which, again, I’m not sure is actually any good) and turn it into a sitcom. Of course, they’re completely unwilling to admit to themselves that their glorious union is on the verge of falling apart…
After a rather… eventful graduation day, we rejoin everybody five years later for a wedding. We see how their fortunes have changed, and if whatever love they had for one another can still be salvaged.
It is at this point that I must take a step back and acknowledge something: this is very much an indie movie, which used to be a descriptor of distribution methods; somewhere along the line, it became a genre.
Whereas in the not so distant past, independent films could be about all sorts of things, it has recently become a codeword for: Angsty, self-involved, indecisive, mostly white 20-somethings use their quirky senses of humor to stave off responsibility while trying to sort out their love lives and figure out who they want to be when they grow up. Also, there’s a lot of guitar noodling on the soundtrack.
All of which describes I’m Obsessed With You (But You’ve Got To Leave Me Alone) to a T.
Now, none of this is an inherent ‘bad’. More important than the basic synopsis is how the story is told; if there are only seven stories, what are the filmmakers bringing to the table to push it ahead of the pack?
What I’m Obsessed With You (But You’ve Got To Leave Me Alone) brings to the table is some really strong performances and many genuinely funny moments. The cast has such a wellspring of chemistry and are so assured in their roles that I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this was the original cast of the play. These relationships all feel genuine and lived in.
However, your mileage may vary on how much time you actually want to spend with these people…
They’re punishingly insular and self-absorbed, with varying levels of semi-forced quirk. Mind you, this may be part of the point; the title itself comes from the push-pull gravity of love and friendship, and if we learned anything from Interstellar, it’s that gravity is love and… fuck, you know what? I’m not sure that movie made any kind of sense.
But this isn’t about the Infinite Wooderson. It’s about Improv.
Wait, shit. It’s not even about that. It’s about… you know. Life, man.
I’m Obsessed With You (But You’ve Got To Leave Me Alone) is more ambitious than the average film of this type, what with its multiple time jumps and its attempts to give the characters actual depth. I may give the movie a little stick for its occasional lapses into the Indie Vortex Of Quirk, but there is a genuine sense that the characters are grappling with deeper, darker issues than generally seen in these types of films. Class issues, polyamorous sexuality, and willful self-destruction all play a role in the movie, and in a way that the nonstop jokes don’t entirely paper over.
And without going into spoilers, that’s why the movies’ ending really bugged me. If I’m reading it right, it seems to portray absolute regression as some kind of victory. It raises some serious questions about these people and their choices and it feels like the “happy” ending kicks the ball down the road instead of actually dealing with the answers. One character in particular is so ill-served by the third act (though to be fair, she’s underwritten as a whole) that she disappears completely and no one seems to notice.
It’s possible that the whole ending was meant to be satire, but if so it didn’t quite play that way, and the whole thing left a sour taste in my mouth.
There are a lot of movies of this type running around out there, and I’m Obsessed With You (But You’ve Got To Leave Me Alone) is certainly one of the better ones. It might even be pretty damn good. But speaking as someone who’s burned out a bit on the whole indie comedy thing this year, I can’t say for sure whether it’s worth your time.
Perhaps the best thing I can say about it is that I’d very much like to see this exact cast in a movie that doesn’t remind me of fifteen other movies I’ve watched this year.
Which I guess doesn’t actually sound that great on paper, but hey, here we are.
