The title of “Happythankyoumoreplease” is quite apropos — you will leave the theater grateful and wanting more of its offbeat charm. If you are already groaning at the prospect of yet another contrived indie rom-com à la “500 Days Of Summer” or the movie version of “Friends” or the millennials’ answer to “Singles,” you will find yourself pleasantly surprised.
In “Happythankyoumoreplease,” director, writer and star Josh Radnor (“How I Met Your Mother”) forgoes the hipper-and-more-clever-than-thou approach in favor of an unassuming, natural dialogue and genuinely likable characters. And if there is such a thing as a New York “vibe,” the movie captures it spot-on.
The lead character, Sam (Radnor), is an aspiring novelist on the way to a meeting with a publisher who meets a boy named Rasheen (Michael Algieri) who gets separated from his family on the train. As a plot vehicle, Rasheen and Sam’s relationship is meant to assure us of Sam’s inherent goodness despite his ne’er-do-well, seemingly rakish lifestyle, delivering some of the more heart-warming, cute lines in the movie.
For example, Sam labels his suburban angst-free childhood as hardly “Dickensian” or conducive to writing the great American novel. Or when Sam discovers Rasheen’s art talents, he laughs at Rasheen’s drawing of him as a “dashing Russian aristocrat.” These sort of exchanges abound and make the movie terribly endearing with a low cheese factor.
The other characters are equally compelling. Mary Catherine (Zoe Kazan) and her boyfriend Charlie (Pablo Schreiber), who try to decide whether or not to move to Los Angeles, which Mary calls the “epicenter of all that is awful.” Sam’s best friend Annie (Malin Akerman) is bemoaning her unfortunate choice in men, (dating “29-year-old 12-year-olds”) when she meets a seemingly dorky co-worker who seems to constantly hang out on her floor at work because “philanthropic giving is the cool place to be.”
Annie tells this story of an Indian cab driver-would-be-guru who advises her that a good way to perpetuate more gratitude in the universe is to simply say, “Thank you. More please.” Albeit hokey as far as mantras go, it’s veritable enough for hippie-esque Annie, who in the end gets over her abysmal dating streak and allows herself to be wooed by the uncool Sam #2.
Then, there is Sam’s love interest, waitress and cabaret singer Mississippi (Kate Mara), whose refusal to sleep with Sam due to her New Year’s avowal to “not be a whore” leads to their impossibly-cute three-day-stand/move-in session, complete with a hand-written contract and key exchange.
The characters in “Happythankyoumoreplease” feel very realistic with no tacked-on, contrived idiosyncrasies for entertainment’s sake. It’s definitely a feel-good movie, but not in a mawkish, fake sense. In the end, the characters all end up working through their various conflicts, but the resolutions are not fanciful and unrealistic.
thescene@theeagleonline.com
