IMDb's intro to this movie starts "Ted, a stuffy white guy from Illinois working in sales", and there, right away, we have the problem. If you're an arrested child, who thinks that the idea of working in sales equals death, and that considering the consequences of your actions equals "stuffy", then I expect you will hate this film. But for the rest of us, it's a breath of fresh air.
Other people have said what's appealing about it --- the unexpected zigs and zags of the story, the amusing (though not laugh-out-loud funny) dialog, the portrayal of a dynamic between two guys that's touching without ever being cloying. But for me what I enjoyed was the (depressingly rare) chance to see people acting as adults.
It is nice to see someone who takes their job seriously and tries hard to do well at it, rather than concentrating all his energy on goofing off and avoiding the boss. (This goes for both Fred and Ted.) It's nice to see people thinking seriously about what is and is not working in their romantic lives and how to fix it. It's nice to see people not relying on ridiculous clichés about fate and destiny as the solutions to all their problems.
Meanwhile, on the other side, it's nice to see all this seriousness but in a movie populated by basically decent people, people you don't hate, in a movie that isn't ramming some sort of absurdly non-subtle message down your throat ala most indie cinema.
I'm pretty impatient with movies. I'd say 70% of the movies I watch, after 10 minutes I switch it off because the movie has in no way captured my interest. I haven't laughed, I haven't been surprised, all I've seen is the same old **** I've seen a million times before. Maybe it's the husband and wife fighting with each other. Maybe it's the "those were the days" kids playing. Maybe it's the nerdish guy being belittled by other people at work. You know what I mean --- five minutes into the movie and you know the stereotypes every character fits, and exactly how it will all play out.
What so appealed to me about this movie is how (without "twists" or gimmicks) it doesn't follow that path. The primary characters kept growing and revealing new aspects to their characters throughout the movie in a way that's all too rare. Give it a chance!
