2015 Tribeca Film Festival: ‘Slow Learners’
Boy 1 and Girl 1 are work friends. Boy 1 can’t get date with Girl 2, 3, 4, etc. Girl 1 can’t get date with Boy 2, 3, 4, etc. Boy 1 and Girl 1 talk about their feelings. Boy 1 and Girl 1 fall for each other.
Alright, let’s admit it, it’s a constant formula to any romcom that’s out there. But the fact that Slow Learners relies more on the comedic side than the romantic one is a bit of a relief, considering just how overdone it already is.
Directed by Don Argott and Sheena Joyce and written by Matt Serwood, Slow Learners introduces us to Jeff Lowry (played by Adam Pally) and Anne Martin (played by Sarah Burns), who are two teachers who just can’t find love. They go on date after date only to be rejected and get all the more depressed. Colleagues, they confide in each other about their love woes and they promise to help get the other into the best condition so they can get dates. And of course we can see what happens next: loveless and dateless, they fall for each other. There we go, happy ending, moving on.
What Slow Learners does do well, however, is move far enough from that formula to guarantee laughs. Shenanigans are all abound as soon as you enter this mysterious world, full of Saturday Night Live cast and The Office or It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia cast members. Laughs are abundant in an otherwise boring movie, which clearly has a “put a fork in me” attitude from the beginning.
But, what to expect? Besides some good asides delivered by Pally and Burns, SNL cast members Bobby Moynihan and Cecily Strong step in for some hilarious moments, as do The Office’s Kate Flannery and It’s Always Sunny’s Catherine Reitman.
Watch a clip from the film below as well as our interviews with the cast, like Reitman, Peter Grosz, Flannery, Moynihan, Mary Grill, and more.