34-year-old Nancy has given up on finding love but ‘steals’ a blind date with the unknowing Jack, a 40-year-old divorcee. Their evening in London turns into an unforgettable series of odd encounters, mishaps and soul-searching.
Few Romcoms deliver both romance and comedy in the correct measures. If a romcom gets you to care about the main characters, root for them and laugh out loud, then it’s a job well done. Man Up achieves all three. Lake Bell’s Nancy needs some confidence-building and Simon Pegg’s Jack needs to hear a few home truths. The basic premise of Nancy intentionally stealing the date, is made believable, unlike a lot of more contrived Romcom plots. The whole film is also more plausible because we aren’t watching two of the ‘beautiful people’ who would clearly have no trouble finding a partner in the real world. Nancy and Jack are ‘normal’ like most of the general population. It is certainly not love at first sight, but the evening thaws their relationship. This is a lot of fun and, spoiler alert, all ends happily for everyone.
Strictly speaking, this shouldn’t really be signposted by Film Finds as FF tries to shine a light on less well-known movies. However, if you avoided this first time round purely on the basis of it being “another romcom”, give it a go.
Certificate: 15
1 hour 53 min
BBC iPlayer, Netflix, Prime and Netflix
