Review: 'Somebody I Used to Know'

Five out of Five Stars

By Mallory Stiles
Associate Editor

Movies mean more to me than most. Since I was young, I watched movies like a scientist would watch cells under a microscope. I studied them, always looking for passion, precision and plot, but most importantly, something to learn.

“Somebody I Used to Know,” released on Feb. 10 of this year, teaches us that sometimes doing what’s right hurts, but it is still what is right.

There are more than a few laughs thrown in to make up for the tears that will fall while the credits roll. The movie is rated R for sexual content, graphic nudity, language throughout and brief drug use … all done tastefully, if I do say so myself.

 We start off in a bathroom mirror with the main character, Ally, played by Alison Brie, hunched over a sink giving herself a pep talk. She is preparing to storm into her last interview for a season finale of a show she directs in L.A.

As a journalist having done this many times, I was hooked. Tiny spoiler, the show gets cancelled despite her best efforts and obvious talent.

She decides to go visit her mother in her home town of Leavenworth, Wash., and is driven to a local bar after finding her mother … um, otherwise engaged with her live-in boyfriend.

While at said bar, she runs into her ex from 10 years ago named Sean, played by Jay Ellis. They have a typical night of wonder and nostalgia, but abruptly go their separate ways at sunrise, with Sean being the one to pull back.

Ally simply cannot forget him again in light of recent tragedy. She sets out to find him the next day at his home. She is confronted by not only a party, but it is Sean’s engagement party to his new girlfriend, Cassidy, played by Kiersey Clemons.

Of course, the wedding is that weekend, following the night of the engagement party. Before seemingly any time has passed at all, Ally has devised a plan and accepted the title of filmographer, if only to stay close to her “happily ever after.”

After that we see bonding, breaking and a little streaking because it is 2023, after all. But the ending is truly unconventional in every sense of the word.

The run time was neither too long nor too short and the film was filled with unexpected avenues and unique elemental characteristics.

A lot of support was shown to the LGBTQ community with an openness surrounding bisexual behavior referenced often in Cassidy’s past romantic history. Racial issues were all but ignored when Sean was revealed as an adopted black man in a white family.

The movie screamed progress and gave a refreshing alternative to love conquers all which was … do the right thing and don’t let a man tell you what to do.