Kimber Myers
With New Girl’s Nick Miller, Into the Spiderverse’s Peter B. Parker, and Minx’s Doug Renetti, Jake Johnson has perfected a scruffy, schlubby schtick across most of his roles in film and TV. His feature directorial debut, Self Reliance, capitalizes on his strengths as a performer and the audience’s perception of him, casting himself as yet another charming but listless dude who gets a chance to grow. Unfortunately, like many of the characters Johnson plays (Nick Miller, I’m looking — and winking — at you), Self Reliance isn’t great at execution or actually finishing things. However, also like Johnson’s characters, it does know how to show the audience a pretty good time.
Two years after a rough breakup, Tommy (Johnson) is still wallowing, stuck in a rut and living with his mother. So when Andy Samberg (Andy Samberg) welcomes him into a limo and invites him to participate in a dark-web reality show, Tommy is in– even if it means he has to survive people trying to kill him for 30 days to win a million dollars. The twist in the game is that the often-alone Tommy is safe whenever he’s within arm’s length of another person, so he just has to find someone to survive with, 24 hours a day.
What might be even tougher for Tommy is finding someone he can be authentic with. Self Reliance opens with a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote: “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” Tommy is a single, oddball loner in a world designed for couples, and he struggles to find connection, even with his family who don’t believe his wild story about jumping into Andy Samberg’s limo, much less having to avoid being alone to win a million dollars and not die.
In addition to Samberg’s appearance, his Lonely Island produced the film, and Self Reliance has a similar, if less inventive, feel to Palm Springs. Both are quirky dark comedies that force their in-a-rut hero to spend a lot of time with a cute girl, who they inevitably fall for. In Self Reliance, that partner is played by Anna Kendrick, Johnson’s co-star in Drinking Buddies. The actors have a warm, easy chemistry that makes you believe they could spend endless hours together trying to stay alive, without getting murder-y themselves.
Sadly, Self Reliance squanders the potential of its cool concept. It doesn’t fully lean into the satirical elements of people getting entertainment from watching a person risk their life for money. The romance between Johnson and Kendrick’s characters also feels underdeveloped outside of their strong chemistry. We just see them being cute in montages, rather than witnessing evidence of their connection beyond the volume of time they spend together. Multiple elements feel half-baked; Self Reliance is trying to do a lot, but it doesn’t do any of it especially well.
All that said, if you’re a fan of Johnson (and if you’re not, why are you here?), Self Reliance has its charms, particularly those stemming from the actor’s near-perfect comic timing and delivery. It’s goofy and just weird enough to be interesting, though I wish it had been weirder. It gets a decent number of laughs thanks to Johnson and solid supporting work from Christopher Lloyd, Daryl J. Johnson, Emily Hampshire, and Mary Holland. In his first feature effort, Johnson is a capable director, especially when it comes to getting great performances from his fellow actors. However, he does display a distracting penchant for lens flares, and there’s an undercooked theme in both the visuals and plot that hints that this game may go back to at least medieval times.
With Johnson’s fingerprints all over it, Self Reliance is a flawed but moderately enjoyable little movie. It’s okay enough to temporarily distract you from the isolation of the modern world, but it doesn’t offer anything more fully formed or substantial despite its high-concept premise and commentary on loneliness. No one will blame you if you just watch New Girl for the fourth time instead, which is itself a pretty good substitute for human companionship.
B-
“Self Reliance” is on Hulu Friday.
