Celeste & Jesse Forever

Plot synopsis:
Celeste (Rashida Jones) and Jesse (Andy Samberg) are best friends who start dating in high school and eventually marry young. Their relationship is shown in a photo montage; the montage ends with Celeste walking away from Jesse during a party.
Celeste and Jesse still get along well. Celeste is a successful trend analyzer and runs her own media company with her partner, Scott (Elijah Wood). Celeste's media company has just signed Riley Banks (Emma Roberts), a teen pop-star whom Celeste does not respect and had openly bashed during a previous television interview. Jesse is an unemployed artist in no hurry to find a job.
Celeste decides to separate but promises to stay friends and date other people. Jesse passively agrees, still in love with her and hoping for her to come back around. Celeste and Jesse's continuing closeness after their separation and in the process of divorcing becomes increasingly annoying to their mutual engaged best friends, Beth (Ari Graynor) and Tucker (Eric Christian Olsen). Beth tries to reason with the divorcing couple of the weirdness, but Celeste rationalizes that it is better for her and Jesse to maintain their friendship. Even their other mutual friend Skillz (Will McCormack) agrees that it is time for the two to move on with their lives.
Celeste is at first content with her current situation until they spend a night together. Realizing that a reconciliation is not possible, Jesse finally decides to move out while ignoring Celeste's apologies. One day Jesse announces that his new girlfriend Veronica is pregnant, which does not sit well with Celeste. She expresses her concern to Beth who questions her about having second thoughts with the divorce. To distract herself, Celeste takes up exercising and dates other people.
During her date with Max (Rich Sommer), Celeste runs into Jesse. The encounter becomes awkward for Celeste, but not for Max who finds Jesse to be a cool guy. Having gone through his own divorce, Max then confronts her that she's not ready to be dating again and to take her time. After a few more awkward dates with other men, Celeste meets Paul (Chris Messina) in yoga class and dresses him down for trying to hit on her but eventually warms up to him after meeting him again at a party. In the meantime, Jesse takes on more responsibility for Veronica and their child and matures along the way. Celeste realizes that her decision to divorce Jesse was impulsive and selfish, and wants to reunite with him. They then fight about her controlling nature and his slacker ways and go their separate ways on bad terms.
Celeste later gets a call from Riley asking her to come over. Celeste believes that Riley is angry over the logo she designed for her that unintentionally resembles a penis going into a butt. The logo sparks controversy with her tween fanbase. She arrives at Riley's house to find her in tears. Riley reveals that she has had a secret boyfriend, who she discovered has been cheating on her. They form an unexpected bond over their shared heartbreak and slowly become friends. At a nightclub with Riley, Celeste realizes the logo appeals to Riley's gay fan base, and they could use this to make her the next Lady Gaga. While walking with Riley, Celeste runs into Rupert (Rafi Gavron) a young, hot model she had rejected after an awkward date, and introduces him to Riley.
At Beth and Tucker's wedding, Celeste makes a toast. She tells the newlyweds to appreciate each other, to be patient, and to try harder, like she should have. This speech touches Jesse, and he thanks Celeste. They are able to reconcile and become friends again.
On a karaoke date, Celeste informs Paul of her need to take some time to recover from the divorce, which he says he understands. We then see Celeste and Jesse finally signing their divorce papers and laughing at each other's inside jokes. Their lawyers look on, confused by their laughter. Celeste wishes Jesse well. She finally asks Jesse if he loves Veronica, to which he responds that he does. Celeste encourages him to keep fighting for it and they have one last kiss. Celeste begins to finally move on with her life and with Paul.

Tags: romantic, entertaining, plot twist

Review:
'CELESTE & JESSE FOREVER': Four Stars (Out of Five) Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg play a divorcing couple who remain best friends and inseparable until one meets someone new.
The film is equal parts comedy and drama and actually allows both Jones and Samberg to show off their acting chops and do something a little more serious for a change.
It's a funny and insightful film and both Jones and Samberg shine in it.Jones plays Celeste, a trend analyzer who runs a media business with her friend Scott (Elijah Wood).
When Jesse tells Celeste he's having a baby with his beautiful new girlfriend Veronica (Rebecca Dayan) it throws her for a loop and causes her to reevaluate her life and her feelings for Jesse.The film is told more through Celeste's point of view and it's nice to see a romantic comedy that seems true to life and revolves around the woman having a mental breakdown rather than the guy.
Honestly I had never heard of it before finding it in the $5 bin, but I like Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg (the leads) and the premise seemed interesting, essentially a separated married couple who are still best friends and do everything together, it just didn't work out to be married.
In fact, all the supporting actors were perfect in this romantic drama comedy that required rapid fire quips, flippancy, and gut wrenching truths, culminating in a tearful confrontation between the two main characters that brought me to tears with its heartbreaking authenticity.Seems like Miss Jones is more than a pretty face, and Andy Samberg has range.
Rashida Jones is becoming one of my favorite actresses of today, and I think Celeste and Jesse Forever is her true breakthrough performance.
Rashida plays Celeste who is in the process of finalizing her divorce from her husband Jesse, who still lives with her and are oddly close friends still.
Jesse, played with corky poise by Andy Samberg, soon starts dating to move on which thrills Celeste until his past fling pops up in his life again and reveals that she is pregnant.
Both beat the dead horse of "complicated" relationships in film, but what's nice about "Celeste and Jesse" is that it never loses its comic edge in spite of melodrama.Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg star as the titular couple in the process of a divorce, but because they spent so long as best friends, they have no concept of needing to draw boundaries.It's a tough sell early on, that two people could go through a divorce yet essentially live together and spend time together in a somewhat intimate fashion.
Jones, who co-wrote the script with Will McCormack (who has a supporting role), chooses to make Celeste and Jesse opposites in terms of professional status (he's a slacker artist, she's a big-deal trend forecaster) in order to justify why, despite their fabulous on-screen chemistry, they're not meant to stay married.
It takes a bit of story wizardry, namely physical obstacles that force them apart, but somehow it makes sense, probably because Jones and Samberg are so likable.The story then plays out like the emotional roller coaster of a relationship between two people who feel one thing but do another.
Great romance movies get you charged up because you feel a certain way about both characters, and in this film we only really feel what Celeste feels.There's something special in "Celeste and Jesse," however, some rare ability to see the humor in the personally tragic, the potential for levity and irony in any situation.
You guys are lucky to be best friends.¨Celeste and Jesse Forever is an authentic romantic comedy directed by Lee Toland Krieger (winner of the Independent Spirit Award in 2010 for the screenplay of The Vicious Kind) and written by first timers Rashida Jones and Will McCormack.
The movie begins with a romantic montage between Jesse (Andy Sandberg) and Celeste (Rashida Jones), two best friends in love with each other with a nice indie soundtrack in the background.
Celeste (Rashida Jones) and Jesse (Andy Samberg) are best friends forever.
However, it could lose its audience before it gets to the romantic ending.What "Celeste & Jesse Forever" needs is likable characters.
She could have been likable but wasn't introduced until later on in the film and was way under-used."Celeste & Jesse Forever" was in desperate need for likable characters, and although they eventually gave a reason for animosity towards them, it was too little too late.
The directing was OK, but I found myself waiting for the movie to end.Plot/Characters: 5.5* - A separated couple that still has feelings for one another try to remain friends after some extraordinary circumstances complicate their dynamics.
From an outside observer's perspective, Celeste (Rashida Jones) and Jesse (Andy Samberg) are the perfect married couple.
They still have dinner with their friends together and Celeste, perhaps without realizing it, still wears a heart-shaped necklace which says "C&J 4ever".Celeste and Jesse Forever is a first time writing credit for Rashida Jones and Will McCormack who plays Skillz, the on/off again couple's marijuana supplier and sounding board.
When Celeste calls out a coffee shop line cutter, the guys says, "Are we really going this right now?" When yoga classmate a Paul (Chris Messina) tries to ask out Celeste, she naturally responds, "Are you really doing this right now?" Yes, this is trivial, but if dialogue like this distracts the audience during the film, it is unnecessary.Jesse wants to get back together with Celeste.
The trailer may have billed it as a romantic comedy of sorts, but in fact this film is quite depressing, especially for those who have their heart broken once before, and have taken much time to come to terms with it because of pride, ego, or just plain refusal to let go and move on.The title may seem like two lovers who cannot separate themselves from each other, and make every opportunity possible a declaration of their love, relationship and togetherness.
But once the opening credits are over, we begin to realize, like how the trailer began, that both Celeste (Rashida Jones) and Jesse (Andy Samberg) have separated from their marriage because they find themselves quarrelling a lot more often when under matrimonial vows.
Unlike my other favourite film of the year in Ruby Sparks, this one didn't have much of an uplift for a finale, because it wallowed too much, and cut a little too close to reality, unlike the other mentioned film that has a certain degree of fantasy thrown in.Executive produced and co-written by Rashida Jones, one may not be faulted for thinking that this was more of a Celeste centric story despite its title, because of the character's screen time and the dwelling on issues that Celeste faces throughout the course of the story.
Celeste and Jesse still remarkably stay friends, but the cracks do show up every now and then, and these fill in the blanks for the audience wondering how their firm friendship, with countless of inside jokes and private moments amongst the two, could have gone all the way south instead.And add to that the supporting cast of Elijah Wood as Celete's manager at work, and Emma Roberts as a skanky engineered pop star, really playing against type, just makes the narrative here seem fuller, again centered around Celeste's professional life as a trend analyst, very much opposite the laid back Jesse's freelance artist.
You might think a low budget indie film that revolves around a married couple's recent separation would be about as much fun as being bashed in the nuts with a bag of door knobs, but Celeste and Jesse Forever finds a way to escape any preconceived expectations to deliver an entertaining and original story.Director Lee Toland Krieger is no stranger to venturing off into the deep end where drama and comedy intertwine.
Lost in the influx of medium brow, quirky, sexually blunt, awkward pseudo indie films, the branching-away-from the factorty Urban Outfitters equivalent, post Judd Apatow, striving for a bit more moving in the way of the Duplass, comes Celeste and Jesse, an unfunny romantic comedy which aims for a slightly impressionistic flair.
In order for the film to work, the characters had to in some way be outsiders, underdogs, but it felt like watching boring people without souls trying too hard to be cute and share those "unique" moments, which were sadly few and far between.
She's a type-A career woman, a celebrity trend-spotter who compulsively controls all her impulses, while Samberg plays a slacker graphic artist who's fine with not working for long stretches and repeatedly watches videos of the weightlifting competition from the 2008 Beijing Olympics for inspiration.Directed with a surprisingly deft hand by Lee Toland Krieger ("The Vicious Kind"), the movie focuses on how these two characters, married but separated, remain an absurdly compatible couple whose failed attempt at marriage initially seems quite dumbfounding.
But I just think that it's an over-used hyperbolic phrase employed to describe every single new independent romantic comedy that way.The film seems to begin in earnest, in which the life-long friendship, romantic courtship, and eventual marriage between high school sweethearts Celeste (Rashida Jones, also the film's co-screenwriter, from which Lee Toland Krieger directed) and Jesse (Andy Samberg) is played out in a colorful visual morphology over the opening credits.
(Now I've never been married before, but I'm actually quite sure that there's no rule written down somewhere that says that EVERY divorce has to be bitter and nasty.)The story then shifts its focus to Celeste - a driven career-woman who owns her own business - a trend analyzer, and her many, disastrous attempts to date other people, even though she clearly still has many unresolved feelings for Jesse (who currently resides in their guest house), who is an unemployed artist and does not appear to be in any real hurry to find a job and support himself.
The question simply remains whether they can live up to their philosophy and move past their failed marriage while still remaining friends and seeing other people."Celeste & Jesse Forever" is a charming romantic comedy with some fresh, charming, and true-to-life performances from its two leads.
As a guy, Jones is strikingly beautiful (she's my dream girl at the moment) and extraordinarily talented, but it's quite possible that this is her breakout role here that will lead to bigger, better things."Celeste & Jesse Forever" is not the savior of the indie romantic comedy sub-genre.
Celeste & Jesse Forever (2012) *** (out of 4) Married couple Celeste (Rashida Jones) and Jesse (Andy Samberg) have been separated for six months but they continue to hang out as friends while waiting for the divorce papers.
Celeste (Jones) and Jesse (Samberg) play a separated couple, determined to stay in each other's lives.
They even say that they love each other.Much like the recently released "Lola Versus," "Celeste and Jesse Forever" takes a fairly standard romantic comedy concept and fine tunes it for more indie-minded audiences.
"Celeste and Jesse Forever" not only stars Rashida Jones but was also co-written by her, which proves surprisingly beneficial to the story.
I usually avoid romcoms like they are my creditors but I was pleasantly surprised with how funny and touching this one was.Thanks to a great story from Rashida Jones and Will McCormack, the film isn't just a collection of tired old gags we've seen a million times in the genre of romcoms and it didn't end with the sappy usual way.
Andy Samberg also shows that he may have a future in jumping from comedies to drama and, while he wasn't the best with the dramatic parts in this one, he did look like he was taking his first steps towards that path.The only real downside I had for the film is the fact that all the supporting characters don't really have enough of a presence in the story but, thanks to great performances from Samberg and a REALLY great performance from Jones, a lot of funny moments and a heartwarming story, the shortcomings on this one are barely noticeable and the film is perfectly entertaining..
Rashida Jones & Andy Samberg are Celeste & Jesse.
Throughout the film, Jesse is torn between his wish to move on with his life, and the obvious fact that Celeste is his lifelong love and friend.
The film is about Celeste Martin (Rashida Jones) and Jesse Abrams (Andy Samberg) who after being married at the start of film till the end are going through the hard time that is a divorce.
Of course Celeste struggles with Jesse moving on while she has to deal with her own work problems which include her gay best friend and a pop star she does not like.The film suffers from some of the clique moments that happen in a story like this but that is not even the worst thing about the film.
Some of those actors are Chris Messina, Elijah Wood and Will McCormack in their small roles.The film is not good and trying to make me care for characters in this situation I would usually feel happy for them.
I would not recommend watching no matter how much you like the actors or romantic comedies.MOVIE GRADE: D- (MVP: Rashida Jones).
"Celeste And Jesse Forever" is a film starring Andy Samberg and Rashida Jones (who also wrote the screenplay).
Just a glimpse here, a hint there, but basically we're left to guess about what's happening over there.Don't get me wrong, while watching it I was perfectly happy about the fact that Rashida has way more camera time than her title partner, but after a little reflection there's a bit missing, even for me.Apart from that, "Celeste & Jesse Forever" is a well penned, directed and acted movie with a rather un-Hollywood like ending, which is always nice to see..
Celeste and Jesse Forever (2012): Dir: Lee Toland Krieger / Cast: Rashida Jones, Andy Samberg, Ari Graynor, Eric Christian Olsen, Emma Roberts: Depressing romance with a theme that many folks may relate too.
The important scene regards our star couple, played by Andy Samberg and Rashida Jones out to dinner with a couple who are engaged and the conversation expands to this divorced couple still being close friends.
From the get go I got identified with this main couple; when me and my ex- girlfriend broke up, we became good friends and continued going out, just like Jesse and Celeste.
Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg are two excellent actors with a great chemistry, which makes this movie become more involving and realistic than most of the genre.
Jesse, on the other hand, has to start being serious and make it right this time with his new partner.The film's effective use of supporting characters help advance the lead and let us know who they really are, especially on Celeste's side.
Although, they still meet from time to time because of the divorce process and simply because they belong in the same circle of friends, the two has to endure the heartbreak of seeing each other move on from their past.Bold and unconventional, "Celeste and Jesse Forever" provides you a new look into the overused romantic comedy with a happy fairy tale ending.
When you think about it, the film may actually end up being bland if it landed in the wrong hands.Celeste and Jesse Forever is a bittersweet look into love, its ending and new beginnings.
Bias alert**This reviewer likes Rashida Jones, but does not like most romantic-comedies** Better late than ever I have just saw Celeste and Jesse Forever this week.
The best thing I think to come out of the movie is the extremely impressive performance by Rashida Jones.Jones plays Celeste, one half of the couple divorcing and still trying to maintain their nearly life long best friendship.
In fact they are close friends, and love each other, but don't want to stay married.Naturally it gets more complex than that, and initially we see that Jesse is thinking and hoping that Celeste will change her mind.
What is unique about this one is how the two main couples ended up getting divorced or close to it and yet they just act like best friends.
'Celeste and Jesse Forever' is a witty comedy about an ex-couple who are still best friends and seemingly have everything in common together, but are on the verge of getting divorced.
When we first meet Celeste and Jesse, played by the talented Rashida Jones (who was a co-writer of the screenplay) and Andy Samberg (of Saturday Night Live fame), it's evident that both these actors have tremendous chemistry together.
Rashida Jones, specifically, managed to get her friends on board for this film about two people who are supposed to be getting divorced, but still act like a happily married couple.
At the beginning of the film, when you're introduced to these characters, they seem like best friends or a loving couple.
By the end of the film, you actually hope Celeste and Jesse are not together forever.It's a decent script from Rashida Jones and Will McCormack, but it fails to be a truly compelling film.
Even if you restrict comparisons to the sub-genre of "Sweet & Sour RomComs," CELESTE & JESSE cannot touch (500) DAYS OF SUMM3R, primarily because there is little chemistry or plausibility at any point between the title characters, played by Rashida Jones (who also co-wrote this flick) and Andy Samberg.
Rashida Jones (also co-wrote) and Andy Samberg are the titular characters in what I would call a romantic comedy about post-divorce.
"Celeste and Jesse Forever" is the the story of two friends Celeste (Rashida Jones) and Jesse (Andy Samberg) who have known each other since high school, eventually they got married and now their relationship is on the rocks.
"Celeste and Jesse Forever" stars Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg as a young couple struggling to cope with the disintegration of a long term relationship.