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She’s Out of My League (2010)
Reviewed on 2011 July 30
Entertaining, junk food romantic comedy about a nerd with a big heart, who can’t believe it when the prettiest girl he and his friends have ever seen seems to like him.
Kirk (Jay Baruchel) is a nerd who needs several things: A backbone, a better wardrobe, and more belief in himself. He’s not a conventionally good-looking dude here (his clothes didn’t help him and I’ll get to that), but he’s a decent man. For one thing, he’s not even resentful or bitter when his ex-girlfriend Marnie (Lindsey Sloane) gives him the broom and still hangs out with his nutjob family. I hate the vulgar terms used to describe certain women, but when Kirk’s friends Stainer (T.J. Miller) and Jack (Mike Vogel) use them to paint a picture of Marnie, even I have to admit the shoe fits. Bearing all that in mind, Kirk should give himself a point just for being a nice guy and not going home to nerve gas the whole nest of them. OK, I’m exaggerating a little, but still…
The other problem is that Kirk and his posse work at the airport. Kirk is a TSA agent so he’s pretty much confined to a daily uniform of polyester NerdWare. This doesn’t help when he meets Molly (Alice Eve), a woman who is freak-of-nature good-looking compared to most of the women we’d assume these goofs dated. Kirk is kind to her when she’s running late for a flight and this convinces Molly to break type from her former Izod®-wearing pretty boys. Kirk’s friends can’t believe it, and neither can Kirk.
Was it silly and predictable? Sure, but it made me laugh. It also said something about friends and how much good or harm they can inflict on a relationship or your self-esteem, even if they truly mean well. The things I liked were the fact that they did have Kirk’s best interests at heart and weren’t just being jerks, even when you did want them to shut up, and the dialogue made them sound like a group of friends that grew up together. The Kirk character was a little whiny, but once you got a load of the poor guy’s family, even that made sense.
Two chocolate morsels and some fries.
— Shukti
