Just Friends
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Anna Faris, Amy Smart, Chris Klein, Christopher Marquette, Stephen Root, Julie Hagerty, Fred Ewanuick
Directed by:

Released in the US: November 23rd, 2005
Released in the UK: December 26th, 2005

Reviewed by: The Boneman, ZBoneman.com

Chris (Ryan Reynolds) is a likable, but chubby high-school kid who has a big crush on a popular cheerleader played by Amy Smart. When he finally gets up the nerve to reveal his feelings to her, she rejects him as gently as she knows how. She gives him the oldest, heart-gouging cliché women have at their command - I just want to be friends. As the years go by Chris finds his way to Hollywood, drops the baby fat and works his way up the ladder in the music industry. In fact his transformation from nice kid to smarmy, egocentric womanizer has Jeckyl and Hyde proportions.

Though here at zboneman we typically regard Ryan Reynolds as the poor mans Jason Lee, he does excel at these type of glib hipsters when the material is strong and here it is alot better than the projects he usually takes on. Just Friends is awkward when trying to get across honest emotional moments - but thanks to a funny script by first-timer Adam Davis, the comedy element of the film ran smoothly and director Roger Kumble plays to Reynolds’ strengths, coaxing one of the better performances out of the “if it’s a movie I’ll do it” Reynolds.

Ten years down the road Reynolds’ successful exec has been tasked with recruiting a Paris Hilton-like slutty socialite (Anna Farris) who has decided to have a go at recording an album. Chris gets the job because he had once slept with her - but even he thinks she's sexually insane and is dreading the assignment. Farris is almost always funny and she scores again with Just Friends. She’s so loopy and fogged from drugs and drink that she mistakes Reynolds’ obvious schmoozing for an honest effort to rekindle their romance, but on a flight to Europe, plane trouble grounds them close to Reynolds old stomping grounds during the Holidays. Very romantical, as far as Farris is concerned.

Due to the aforementioned spurning of his tender heart a decade prior, Reynolds has been avoiding his hometown like Compton, and wouldn’t you know it, the object of his adolescent dreams is back in town for the Holidays as well. It all makes for a grand set-up, but we’re not working with Cary Grant in a Preston Sturges film, this is Reynolds surrounded by plenty of inexperience and as a result none of these situations ring with any kind of authenticity. But, as I mentioned it’s not a total loss, the comedic side of the proceedings keep Just Friends from plowing into a snowbank, although Kumble does stumble a bit when he trades in the witty dialogue for too much physical high jinx and warmed over Chevy Chasisms.

Julie Haggerty is effective as Ryan’s kooky mother and there is some good old fashioned big brother/little brother badgering and battery, but when the Anna Farris angle of the story is ditched in favor of the love story the wheels just slowly come off and the film sputters out. When actor and actresses can’t seem to convey true feelings and just don’t behave the way people in their circumstances would behave, you tend to stop caring about whether or not they get together, play monopoly or dismantle a clock radio.

Ultimately I’d have to give the film a reluctant thumbs up, because for much of it’s running time I was amused, they should have just lost the Amy Smart angle and had Reynolds fall madly in love with Farris only to have him decide she just wants to be friends.

Grade: B