Plot: When a female is running for presidency, the hiring of an old friend from school to her writing team sparks an old flame.

The crux of the marketing surrounding this film was that Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron signed up for this to revitalise the middle budget rom-coms with strong writing that we just do not see anymore.


To take us back to the days of When Harry Met Sally, Pretty Woman, Jerry Maguire, Sleepless In Seattle, You've Got Mail, Working Girl and many others during that time period would be nice to see. Rom-com is probably my least successful genre to find films I like. But rom-coms like the ones I've mentioned all have a charm to them that you want to re-visit.


That aim that Rogen, Theron and the rest of the crew had for this film was enough for me to check this out.


I feel confident that they have accomplished what they were set out to do. The film introduced our characters, what they're like and we can expect when they eventually clash. The signs of the witty humor as well as the type of comedy we expect from Seth Rogen were mixing together well.
By the time the second arrived, the character development was only shown in the leads, but also the supporting cast which I was pleased to see. That gave multiple character arch that were easy to invest with and be thoroughly entertained by.
The final act gave us the emotional finale a satisfying conclusion to everyone's story with the main plot.


Creating a believable relationship between Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron will be tricky to be approved by many people. For me, they did enough for me to be convinced. But the writing being fairly strong, that aspect of the story did not matter so much to me as it did at the start as I was still being entertained nevertheless.
I enjoyed the way they used June Diane Raphael and Ravi Patel's characters, how they contributed to the main story with their sub-plot and the support they gave to the main characters.
It was a nice surprise to see O'Shea Jackson Jnr. cast in this and ended up being an ideal casting choice. His chemistry with Rogen gave us some memorable scenes, particularly in the first act.
It was also nice to see Randall Park and Aleksander Skarsgard take minor roles to up the list of an already star studded cast.
There is one final cast member that I want to mention as it took a long time before I recognised who it was. It certainly shocked me, and I hope you can locate this person when you check this film out.


Not much else to mention as this film is pretty much about the performances and the writing.


The story structure may be something you've seen before. But the quality of the writing and the performances still makes a very entertaining watch that also has solid re-watchability.
Rogen and Theron are great together, and the latter continues to remind us she is quite under-rated when it comes to comedic acting.
The depth in character development was well executed and a perfect ingredient for a film that is performance and writing based.
It might not be quite up there with some of the best of recent years, due to its lack of originality. But it is certainly one that is of high-quality and definitely worth your time.


Rating: 8/10