SHE’S OUT OF MY LEAGUE: FORMULAIC IN NATURE AND FANTASTICALLY FUNNY

She's Out of My League is an American Romantic Comedy Film directed by Jim Field Smith and written by Sean Anders and John Morris about an average joe who meets the perfect woman, but his lack of confidence along with the influence of his friends and family eventually start to pick away at the relationship. It stars Jay Baruchel, who plays Kurt Ketner, and Alice Eve, who plays Molly Mcleesh and was produced by Jimmy Miller and David Householter for Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures, receiving a wide theatrical release on March 12, 2010.

The film was released in the United States on March 12, 2010, and grossed $50 million off of a $20 million budget. The film currently has just a 57% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an Audience Score not much better at 59%, with a Metascore of 46, but a much better User Score of 6.6, with a 6.4/10 on IMDB (with over 140,000 ratings).

This film’s premise is one that is very relatable, in that we all have, whether man or woman, tried to shoot our shot with someone that would be considered “out of our league”. It basically goes out of its way to poke fun at something that, in the dating market, is one of the most difficult things to navigate, the point system that we’ve all convinced ourselves governs our potential romantic success or failures.

The film was extremely formulaic, but most romantic comedies are. The writing does make clichés out of a lot of its characters, leaning heavily into stereotypes throughout the story, but it is thirteen years old, so there’s that. The story is paced perfectly and has really interesting characters, especially within Kirk’s friend group (shout out to Allison Jones, the film’s Casting Director), and you notice how well they complement each other almost immediately.

Overall the cast has great chemistry. The dialogue can be crass, and even a bit cringy at times, as it typically is in movies like these, but other than those moments, the writing was fresh, the jokes were funny, even laugh out loud funny at times, and the writers even managed to get us through the “Dark Night of the Soul” without making me want to find something sharp to stick in my eye, all while setting the film to one of the best movie soundtracks I’ve ever heard.

The film’s ratings, scores and even some of the comments online would lead you to believe that this movie isn’t very good, but that’s not true. I think the hate that exists for the film is simply reflective of the genre as a whole, being that romantic comedies have essentially gone the way of the dodo (ie. Millennials and “Zoomers” don’t do romance). But for those of us who look upon movies of this kind fondly, the movie may not transcend the genre, but it delivers exactly what it promises, while movie wistfully towards its inevitable conclusion that “losers” sometimes win.

She’s out of my League is currently available on Pluto TV (for free). It’s also available to rent on Google Play Movies, Redbox, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube Apple TV and Vudu for $3.99.