That Awkward Moment - review

That awkward moment when you watch a film that is likely to alienate a large amount of its female audience and wishing anyone who appreciates the lead character's behaviour to be alienated from society.

This film that would like to fall somewhere in between a lads comedy like The Hangover or The Inbetweeners and a standard romantic comedy but the end result is more akin to a regretful one night stand you want to sneak away from without waking it up.

The three main characters are best friends Mikey, Daniel and Jason. Mikey's wide has just left him and his womanising friends try to get him back in the game, making a vow to stay single while partying hard and playing the field.

In any other movie the character of Mikey (played by Michael B. Jordan) would be the lead but in this film, the lead is Jason who is a thoroughly contemptible person played by teen heartthrob Zac Efron.

Jason has lots of casual sex with a large number of girls and is always on the look out for new girls to add to his "roster" as he frees up space by cutting them loose when they want a relationship.

A spanner is thrown in the works when he falls for a Ellie, has sex with her, mistakes her for a hooker, tells her this, then somehow charms her into another date, doesn't get any sex, has sex with someone else, continues to date Ellie, meets her parents then doesn't attend her day's funeral because "she'll think we're in a relationship".

What will all those High School Musical fans think of Zac now?!

Meanwhile Daniel uses his female friend Chelsea to help him hook up with girls and then sleeps with her, despite her knowing what he is like. They both want a casual thing to begin with but... oh, you've seen rom-coms, you know where that storyline is headed.

The only one who is remotely likeable is Mikey who tries to reconnect with his wife and do the decent thing and the only one you would actually want to end up being happy.

Imogen Poots, both you and your character deserve better than Zac Efron and this movie.

This is not a film that will wine and dine you, romance you with flowers and poetry before dashing to the airport for a huge declaration of love. This is a film that would rather booty call you at 1:00am. Trust me when I say, put your phone on silent and resist the urge. You'll only wake up regretting it afterwards.

1 star