A joint effort from wife-and-husband team Alison Brie and Dave Franco, the romantic comedy “Somebody I Used to Know” (on Amazon) takes a page from “My Best Friend’s Wedding” and probably more than one Hallmark movie: A woman attempts to disrupt pending nuptials so she can have the guy for herself.
I’m a big believer in tropes. If deployed right, they are a solid framework that can then be subverted in all kinds of interesting ways, which is what Brie and Franco have done here. She stars and he directs from a script they co-wrote together.
Brie plays a reality TV producer named Ally and the opening moments are savagely winking as a satire of the reality genre. Her show is called “Dessert Island” and it sounds like an unholy cross between “Top Chef,” “Cake Boss” and “Love Island” (I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to make flans). When competitors are booted, they’re told: “I’m sorry chef, you have been dessert-ted.”
