Save the Date (I) (2012)

It's interesting how long Save the Date has been available on PPV and it's only earned a few reviews. I think this movie will do well on wide release, but it's likely to polarize audiences...I can see people either loving or hating it.

It's far from the traditional RomCom that pleases everyone, but for those who've been through their share of relationship hells and heavens, you'll find a lot to relate to here, and the beauty of Save the Date is that it does it in a chillingly realistic, yet touching way.

Much of this understatement is played with an almost desperate intensity by Lizzy Kaplan, in what many have termed a breakthrough performance (it is). She plays Sarah, a manager of a small bookshop who's pretty much "along for the ride" dating band leader Kevin (Geoff Arend). They seem content enough, yet there are small clues early in the film that something is "off", and when Sarah's best friend (the bubbly Allison Brie) is given a ring by Kevin's drummer (an overdue part in the limelight for the hilarious Martin Starr), it prompts Kevin to do something truly morityfing --- mortifying, that is, if you DON'T want it to happen: he proposes to Sarah in front of a crowded bar band audience and she chokes, a hundred camera phone close by to broadcast the humiliation for weeks to come on You Tube.

The majority of the film follows Sarah as she rebounds to a relationship with good guy Johnathan (Mark Webber) and struggles with a lot of very esoteric issues NOT usually dealt with in "light entertainment": is Sarah in love or like with Johnathan? Is she over Kevin completely? Just what is her freaking problem with commitment and intimacy, anyhow? A lot of these questions will irritate people, but they intrigued me, especially as played out by Kaplan, who is very adept at saying a lot with even the slightest gestures and facial ticks.

Add to this Brie's rock-solid true-to-life support, Martin Starr's deadpan ad-libbed one-liners, and Geoff Arrend's music (his song "Accidents" is truly a beautiful little two-minute piece of heaven) and you have a very unique human comedy that could give you something to think about, in addition to something to swoon over.