Just Friends

Ryan Reynolds is a decent comic actor in search of a decent vehicle. He gets his best one yet with this alternately sweet and nasty look at high school love and its effect on adulthood. The film’s prologue has Reynolds in 1995 as an overweight kid who wants to tell his best friend (Amy Smart) that he loves her. He’s publicly humiliated, and the film jumps 10 years ahead, where the fat kid has become a trim, ladykiller record executive. Circumstances bring him back home, where he tries to woo his high school love, only to revert back to his wimpy ways. Reynolds is very funny in the fat suit. His rendition of “I Swear” into a mirror is a masterful manipulation of fat makeup. Smart is adorable. Anna Faris is total insanity as a Paris Hilton type pinup girl aspiring to be a recording star. A good piece of fluffy entertainment.