Casual Encounters
Taran Killam, Brooklyn Decker
Directed by Zachary Adler
Lionsgate 2016
81 minutes
The premise of Casual Encounters and the fact it stars a Saturday Night Live cast member (Taran Killam) left me a bit dubious. In fact, this pretty decent romantic comedy about a guy who gets dumped. He is then pressured by work buddies to get on a dating site. He goes through various strange dates that are a lot fun to watch. The situations are original and though bizarre, believable. If you’ve ever been part of the dating scene and / or had weird coworkers involved in your dating life, you are going to have fun watching Casual Encounters. This comedy is rated R for nudity and very weird sexual situations.
Casual Encounters is a very quirky comedy with an odd sense of humor. For instance, Justin (Killam) and Laura (Brooklyn Decker, Grace and Frankie) discuss the fact more people are killed by vending machines than sharks. Justin’s first date is with a woman who had her arm sectioned not by a shark but by a vending machine.
The low budget aspect of this romantic comedy is somewhat evident in the very limited amount of settings. There are a few writing or continuity goofs such as when Justin’s ex comes by to pick up stuff and is packed and ready to go five seconds later. It’s nothing that gets in the way of enjoying the movie although there is a scene very early on that establishes Laura is in a relationship but it does not stop her from dating. It also shows in the limited amount of strange hookups Justin has before he sees the light.
The one thing I found hard to bear was the Sammy character (David Krumholtz). I am not sure if it is because the character is just badly written or because of Krumholtz himself.
Special Features for Casual Encounters are the Under the Covers featurette with rather bad sound and Single and Looking where for some reason a few strangers’ dating video is featured.