Isn’t It Romantic

The Final Girls was the best film of 2015, with director Todd Strauss-Schulson going meta with a perfectly loving tribute to the doomed casts of ’80s slasher movies. In a rare burst of inspiration, Hollywood responded by recruiting him for this comedy about a cynical gal (Rebel Wilson) who finds herself stuck living in a glossy romantic comedy. The result is a perfect companion piece to The Final Girls – with a three-gal team of screenwriters carefully mocking the worst tropes while unearthing the most admirable aspects of multiple maligned movies. The script’s also perfectly confident about acknowledging that the movie could’ve been titled Girlfriend in a Coma, and works in some surprising and touching twists among the vicious parodies. Romantic even manages to bring new life to cringe comedy. Let’s hope that the movie’s successful enough to shame any attempts to revive that moronic genre in the wake of Holmes & Watson. It would also be pretty great for Strauss-Schulson to go for a trilogy with a touching take on action movies.

[PG-13]