I only watched about half of this movie, the kitchen was a mess and I was in the middle of cleaning it after a failed experiment where I try to figure out how to make an omelet that has more than 3 eggs in it. Making a nice, hefty omelet always leads to burnt eggs and runny insides. The only solution I came up with was to make 2 omelets. Lots of egg and cooked onions gave their lives to my kitchen walls that day....
The parts of this movie I did see were pretty neutral. A story about a mid thirties dude who feels old while actual old people tell him he's not that old and how crappy everyone feels about aging is nothing new. The characters spend a lot of time discussing books, which was amusing to me because I was just thinking about how I had gotten out of the habit of reading books before bed. This movie makes me reluctant to take it back up. Books are great, but if you read them with even partial intent of telling others about how it made you feel, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Unlike movies, books play only in your mind and that version of the book cannot be seen by anyone else. It would be like watching The Dark Knight Rises, and then discussing it with someone who had seen Batman Forever and trying to find common ground.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the main female character was really annoying. Her never ending sarcasm and one-upping got old fast. Her sarcasm face was a blend of pained eyes with a puckered trying-not-to-laugh mouth. Women of the world: don't be like this chick. Girls that are constantly sarcastic are not cute, they are not fun, they are not ever going to find a boyfriend. Guys do not want to be around a girl that, if they got a bad haircut and passed gas more, could be their little brother. Less sass, more class, ladies.
I never thought I'd say this, but Zach Efron saves this film. He plays a somewhat cliche stoner/type guy who is always sitting on a park bench giving sage advice to the neurotic main character. It works though. And while watching, I discovered a very simple, very large difference between men and women. Women are the selfish ones! The girl spends the whole movie obsessing about herself and what her boyfriend thinks of her, while the boyfriend leaves to save a friend who calls and says he just swallowed a lot of pills. While he's gone, she obsesses about what his absence means in relation to her. She yells at him for being selfish. He wanders off, finds Zach Efron sipping water at his bench, and they discuss life and caterpillars and butterflies and how freaking incredible they are and how if something like that can happen, life can't really be all that bad. They are living in the moment, appreciating the universe. He goes back, and she is extra pissed because all she's been doing is thinking about herself and her little lame world.
I think if women just stopped and thought about what an amazing planet they live on and how their feelings are a minute droplet in the bucket of the universe, their husbands/boyfriends would be a lot happier, and in return they would clean up the house more and make more money and put the toilet seat down. Just a theory.
However, if there is a woman out there, sarcastic, cool, greedy, whatever, that can make a six egg omelet, gimme a call.
