This took a little while to get fully formed for me into a satisfying experience, largely because for about the first half hour or so (or sorry just before we get to 'second trimester') Ed Helms as Matt is doing an awkward character shtick where he says lots of things ala like an Office character (not his or even Michael Scott's, but in that ballpark), blurring out inappropriate or Oh No Dude bits to this lovely young woman carrying his child, via a charming and amusing and yet sad performance from Patti Harrison as Anna. It's like Beckwith is finding her footing with writing for this man who isn't fully sure about who he is around people - as if to hit the nail so far on the head that it comes out the other side we find out his dough comes from an app called "Loner" - and the acting is all real while the dialog is trying to be funny and Helms is too and it just isn't there.
And then these two souls, lo and behold, sit down and have a conversation and it isn't so much that it goes into high drama as we just get interesting character development not only through what is said but what isn't, and how Helms and Harrison find little beats in between their lines that can get us completely invested in them from then on. What's revealed doesn't mean we should expect that they'll wind up together, though I might lean that way if it wasn't made more on the independent route (I know the first note from a studio would be about the Woody Allen font for the credits, what must itself be a self conscious irony given a dialog exchange about his films at one point and how this will inevitably be compared by some short sighted film critoc, but I digress), but it does mean that we can understand then deeply as people who are not lonely but comfortable, or at least that's what they can tell themselves in the moment, with being alone, which is a different thing.
For the rest of the movie then on, I got more absorbed into the emotional wavelength Beckwith was presenting as far as Matt and together and how they just become friends and is about forming an intimacy that naturally unfolds because of the actors finding nuances and little details to play in every scene (and as Harrison plays up the mounting hormones, which aren't just that) and the care in building them up as people in the script. It helps that there aren't any giant contrivance points along the way or like this or that misunderstanding that blows up all over, instead these are filled with Life's Little Moments, and how a connection is formed through Matt's sincerity and Anna's vulnerability.
One should point out some exceptions to breaking up this flow - I can once again hear Patton Oswalt from his bit shouting GAY BEST FRIEEEEND on movies (Rom Coms notoriously) with that trope and good lord this one has a doozy, and it wouldn't even be a problem if he were funny, but the actor doesn't transcend the weak writing for the character - and that Matt's mom (Nora Dunn!) and some of the friends at that one party scene are overbearing to an extent you only get in little Dramedies like these to momentarily up some stakes (think like, say, much more low stakes Shiva Baby in that one scene, or maybe that's just me).
On the other hand, there is this sense underlying much of the film that perhaps Beckwith is also playfully but unmistakably satirizing people who take their lives and how they go about the process of getting to delivery unmistakably in San Francisco, and that helps to ground Matt and Anna as basically good people trying to navigate a world that takes itself at times very seriously. Maybe, ultimately, we all just need someone we can watch a 90s sitcom with and can help pick out a color for a wall without so much pretention. And again, it comes down to believing these two people, separate and together, and I do. It's not great and only ok as a comedy, but as a low-key but powerful drama it's terrific.
And then these two souls, lo and behold, sit down and have a conversation and it isn't so much that it goes into high drama as we just get interesting character development not only through what is said but what isn't, and how Helms and Harrison find little beats in between their lines that can get us completely invested in them from then on. What's revealed doesn't mean we should expect that they'll wind up together, though I might lean that way if it wasn't made more on the independent route (I know the first note from a studio would be about the Woody Allen font for the credits, what must itself be a self conscious irony given a dialog exchange about his films at one point and how this will inevitably be compared by some short sighted film critoc, but I digress), but it does mean that we can understand then deeply as people who are not lonely but comfortable, or at least that's what they can tell themselves in the moment, with being alone, which is a different thing.
For the rest of the movie then on, I got more absorbed into the emotional wavelength Beckwith was presenting as far as Matt and together and how they just become friends and is about forming an intimacy that naturally unfolds because of the actors finding nuances and little details to play in every scene (and as Harrison plays up the mounting hormones, which aren't just that) and the care in building them up as people in the script. It helps that there aren't any giant contrivance points along the way or like this or that misunderstanding that blows up all over, instead these are filled with Life's Little Moments, and how a connection is formed through Matt's sincerity and Anna's vulnerability.
One should point out some exceptions to breaking up this flow - I can once again hear Patton Oswalt from his bit shouting GAY BEST FRIEEEEND on movies (Rom Coms notoriously) with that trope and good lord this one has a doozy, and it wouldn't even be a problem if he were funny, but the actor doesn't transcend the weak writing for the character - and that Matt's mom (Nora Dunn!) and some of the friends at that one party scene are overbearing to an extent you only get in little Dramedies like these to momentarily up some stakes (think like, say, much more low stakes Shiva Baby in that one scene, or maybe that's just me).
On the other hand, there is this sense underlying much of the film that perhaps Beckwith is also playfully but unmistakably satirizing people who take their lives and how they go about the process of getting to delivery unmistakably in San Francisco, and that helps to ground Matt and Anna as basically good people trying to navigate a world that takes itself at times very seriously. Maybe, ultimately, we all just need someone we can watch a 90s sitcom with and can help pick out a color for a wall without so much pretention. And again, it comes down to believing these two people, separate and together, and I do. It's not great and only ok as a comedy, but as a low-key but powerful drama it's terrific.