Just Friends (2005)

Starring Ryan Reynolds and Amy Smart, I really liked this movie and felt guilty doing so. Maybe it is because parts of it I could relate to, and other parts were just so silly in situation that you couldn’t help but laugh.

Chris (Reynolds) and Jamie (Smarts) are the best of friends in high school. Jamie is the hot cheerleader type that flirts with all the guys and acts without too much discretion around Reynolds. In the final party of his senior year, Chris gets up the courage to write how he really feels in Jamie’s yearbook. Well, like most high school stories, things go wrong, and oh, did I mention, Chris is a fat guy. So he is royally embarrassed by his peers and runs away to Los Angeles vowing never to return. Instead, promises to become “Somebody”.

Fast forward to the future, Chris is now a successful music mogul, confident, good looking, he can have any girl he wants. For Christmas, he has to escort in hopes of signing, a hot young bubble gum singer (Anna Faris) that is also irritating and obnoxious. Flying to Paris, she accidentally frys the microwave in the plane with some tinfoil, and the planes lands. Just outside of Jersey, Chris decides to stay with his parents until they can get another flight. He hasn’t been home in ten years, and all of a sudden, everything comes rushing back. Everything he wanted to escape.

The “Friend Zone” is a term coined by this movie, meaning, when you are such good friends with a girl she can’t even see you as a dating option. Chris sees Jamie, his feelings come rushing back, and so do his imperfections. Trying so hard to be someone he is not, one hilarious situation after another arises. Then he has to deal with Dusty (Chris Klein of American Pie fame), who also had a thing for Jamie is high school and is trying to score.

Back and forth they go, this movie makes you feel for Chris in both ways. The “Friend Zone” is real and true, and if you can appreciate that, you will love this movie. That, and the scene on tv when Chris is lip signing, in his fat suit, to “I Swear”. So stupid. Not a movie my parents would like, but anyone who enjoyed 40 year old virgin, or wedding crashers, this is less vulgar, more painful humor at times. You should check this out if you liked either of those two movies, and if you think Reynolds is a super cocky humor genius.

Here are some similar arcade posts

• Waiting (2005)
• Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
• You, Me, and Dupree (2006)
• Cruel Intentions (1997)
• Eurotrip (2004)

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