The Right Kind of Wrong (2014)

Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Overrated

Load of rubbish!!

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Leo Palamino (Ryan Kwanten) becomes infamous for his ex-wife Julie Deere's blog "Why You Suck". He's a writer who can't write and works happily as a dishwasher. After 18 months, she has a publishing deal and he still hasn't read the blog. He falls for complete stranger Collette (Sara Canning) who is a bride on her way to marrying perfect guy Danny Hart (Ryan McPartlin). Tess (Catherine O'Hara) is her estranged mother. Leo's best friend Neil (Will Sasso) has an unusual marriage to Jill. There is a 'ghost' bear.Leo is a pathetic delusional immature slacker that the movie is trying to pawn off as a charming dreamer. It would be helpful if Collette shows any signs of liking Leo in the first act. They should get together over ghost bear before she gets married. He needs to show his good guy credential by helping those kids in an early scene. As it stands, she should get a restraining order right after the wedding. It's trying very hard to be a bright, sunny, quirky comedy. The scenery looks majestic. I give it points for trying something but it doesn't work. The setup is wrong and everything following it suffers. It's also very weird to begin the movie with legendary Catherine O'Hara who disappears for half of the movie. There are relatively easy fixes but the setup needs to be completely rewritten.

This story is a good one. The only reason I don't give it a ten is the rough spots here and there. Yes, it is Rom-Com formulaic, but it does not have the smarmy Hollywood quality that taints so many similar movies. I found the the lack of super-slick production rather charming, actually.It feels like a good first effort from a talented director, played out by actors that, while not at all novices, have not yet perfected their craft. It could have benefited from some more stringent cutting; several inessential scenes hit me as sophomoric or hackneyed and made me stop watching . . . but I kept coming back to the DVD for a bit more. A good thing -- not viewing all of this movie would have been a mistake, a disservice to myself.

Quite honestly, I am surprised that this movie is getting such great reviews. To begin with, the main character, Leo, falls in love with Colette, a complete stranger, on her wedding day. He pretends that he is a guest at her wedding and proceeds to hit on Colette in front of her husband which (obviously) causes a scene and gets him kicked out. In a later scene, the bride's mother comments that she thought his actions were "ballsy". No, actually, it is extremely creepy and inappropriate to behave like that and cause such a scene at a strangers wedding.The rest of the movie is dedicated to watching Leo's multiple attempts to get Colette's attention. She rejects his advances numerous times but he won't stop bothering her. Eventually, this starts causing problems in her marriage and she winds up with Leo by the end of the movie. The plot of this movie disturbs me. After multiple rejections, he will not leave her alone and I couldn't understand why Colette and her husband were being so nice about it. 3/4 of the way through, the husband steps in and threatens Leo, which is the movie's attempt to make the husband look like the bad guy but the reality is that Leo is the bad guy. He interferes with complete strangers lives/marriage and will not quit until he gets what he wants. In typical romantic comedy fashion, they try to make his advances seem innocent and endearing however any normal person in real life would have taken out a restraining order about a half hour into the movie. I am tired of romantic comedies glorifying stalking behaviors that would normally get you arrested.

This is really why Canadian film gets such a bad rap. The trailer for The Right Kind of Wrong actually looked fun. It looked quirky and cute and funny and I was reasonably looking forward to this. My expectations weren't huge by any means but there were some fatal flaws to this "romantic comedy." They mixed together the sort of crude humour that makes American comedies so successful with trying to be uniquely Canadian...something Canadian film makers can't ever seem to LET GO. The plot stumbles around and propels extremely vapid and annoying characters around each other. The script is honestly excruciating and as a writer I couldn't help but think how much editing could have been done to make this better. Now that I complained about it I will add that I did laugh a few times (both from gross-out shock and some decent physical gags and general silliness), there were some moments that at least tried very hard to be sweet but unfortunately for this film the bad outweighs the good at least two to one. After watching the VASTLY superior Canadian comedy "My Awkward Sexual Adventure" (one of the first Canadian comedians to truly impress me and was as good as any American counterpart) this just paled in comparison.Ryan Kwanten is our lead hero. He's awkward and foolish and sort of a bum in life and managed to endear himself to his lady love. Kwanten tries hard and has some charisma on screen but just barely. I think the script was bad enough that he didn't have a lot to work with. He isn't the worst part of the cast by any means. Sarah Canning is the object of his affections...god knows why. I'm sorry to say that she is awful in this role. She is supposed to be this guy's dream come true but she is completely vapid and without any redeemable qualities at all. The script does nothing to develop her as a "dream" girl and their chemistry is literally non-existent. I couldn't have cared less whether they ended up together or not. Kristen Hager was actually better (and still not good) as Kwanten's disgruntled ex. She looks a little like Jennifer Lawrence and that's about as good as she gets. Her role is very small but I thought her chemistry with Kwanten was at least marginally better than Canning's is. Canadian comedy legend Catherine O'Hara is completely wasted in the film as Canning's mother. She has very few scenes and not even any good lines to speak of which is unfortunate. Literally the best character I thought in the movie was played by Will Sasso as the best friend. Its such an incredibly small role and he doesn't get any chance to try and redeem the movie but he has a few really funny scenes. Maya Sammy is also hilarious in a "kids say the darndest things" sort of way with shock value rants about drugs and sexual innuendos. Still she has some hilarious lines and is adorable too.I am absolutely floored that the director of this film is the one and only Jeremiah Chechik. Who is that you may ask? His first directorial film was the classic, and downright hilarious National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. He has also done a ton of really great TV as well. I can only hazard to guess that he misread this mess of a script or owed someone a favour because honestly he is better than this. The film simultaneously tries too hard and not hard enough all at once by trying to be an American rom-com and failing but at the same time not trying to make sense of a very poor script. While this just barely gets a passing grade, it is watchable but really unless you're forced to...don't. Its something worth forgetting about in a sea of far better entries in the genre. 5/10