“Ted is coming” is the tagline, and in 2012 it came with a bong, a Boston accent and a talking teddy bear voiced by Seth MacFarlane. The film marked MacFarlane’s feature directorial debut. He co-wrote it with Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild, from a story he wrote himself. Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis star. Universal Pictures released it in the United States on June 29, 2012, after a premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on June 21. It runs 107 minutes. It is a comedy, with a little fantasy bolted on.
Trailer, via Universal Pictures UK.
A Wish in Norwood, Massachusetts
The premise is simple and it holds. In 1985, eight-year-old John Bennett lives in Norwood, Massachusetts, a friendless only child. On Christmas Day he wishes his new jumbo teddy bear would come to life and be his friend. A shooting star passes. The wish comes true. Word spreads, and Ted briefly becomes a celebrity.
By 2012, John is 35. He and Ted share a Boston apartment with John’s girlfriend, Lori Collins. The two are staunch companions, and their life together is hedonistic in the way that word usually means: no plan, no schedule, no ambition. Lori has been waiting for John to grow up. Their fourth anniversary is coming.
The Prostitutes and the Floor
What persuades John to act is not a conversation. It is the discovery of Ted at home with a group of prostitutes, one of whom has defecated on the floor, after John and Lori return from their anniversary dinner. John finds Ted his own apartment and a job at a grocery store. Ted starts dating a co-worker, Tami-Lynn.
Then Lori learns John has been skipping work, using her as an excuse, to spend his days with the bear. The film is not subtle about what it thinks of this. It is not subtle about much.
Rex, Guy and the Flash Gordon Party
Lori’s manager, Rex, is a womanizing type played by Joel McHale. He throws a party. John and Lori are invited. Ted lures John away to a party at his own apartment instead, with the offer of meeting Sam J. Jones, the star of Flash Gordon, the film John and Ted both love. John intends to stay a few minutes. He stays longer. Lori finds him there, kicks him out and breaks up with him.
Devastated and furious, John blames Ted for ruining his life. He ends the friendship. That is the turn the film needs, and it lands harder than the jokes around it.
| Time | Event |
|---|---|
| 1985, Christmas Day | John, 8, wishes Ted to life in Norwood |
| 2012 | John, 35, lives with Ted and Lori in Boston |
| Fourth anniversary | Dinner out; Ted found with prostitutes |
| Shortly after | Ted moves into his own apartment, takes grocery job |
| Later | Rex’s party; Ted’s party; Lori ends the relationship |
| After the split | Ted goes to John’s hotel room to tell him about Lori and Rex at the Norah Jones concert |
| After the brawl | Ted arranges for Norah Jones to help repair John’s relationship with Lori |
Two Men and a Brawl
Ted goes to John’s hotel room to tell him Lori and Rex are at a Norah Jones concert together, on a date. Norah Jones plays herself. The conversation turns into an argument, the argument turns into a violent brawl, and the two reconcile. To repair John’s relationship with Lori, Ted arranges for Norah Jones to help. The film wants you to feel the friendship is worth saving. By this point, it has earned about half of that.
MacFarlane in the Bear
MacFarlane provides the voice and the motion capture of Ted. That is the film’s real technical bet, and it works better than the script deserves. Ted is a live-action animated creation dropped into a live-action Boston, and he never feels pasted in. Wahlberg plays John as a man who has been given permission to stay a boy, and the performance is loose and likable. Kunis has the harder job.
Lori is the only person in the film who wants anything to change. That makes her the adult, which makes her the nag, which makes her the least funny person on screen. The script does not give her much room to be anything else.
Giovanni Ribisi plays Donny, and Patrick Warburton plays Guy. Patrick Stewart narrates. Matt Walsh, Jessica Barth, Aedin Mincks and Bill Smitrovich round out the cast.
What the Jokes Cost
The comedy is broad and it is often cruel, and the film does not care which. A bear doing bong hits, a bear at a grocery store, a bear in a brawl: the gags are pitched at the moment, not at the story. That is a choice, and it is a defensible one. What is harder to defend is the film’s attitude toward Lori, who is written as an obstacle rather than a person. The movie asks us to root for John and Ted to stay together, but it never makes a case for what that friendship gives John that is worth losing her over. It just assumes we agree.
The fantasy element is thinner than it looks. The wish is a device to get a talking bear into a Boston apartment, and once he is there, the film treats him as a roommate with a foul mouth. That is fine. It is also why the emotional beats in the last act feel borrowed from a better film.
The Franchise It Started
Ted grossed $549 million worldwide and was the year’s highest-grossing comedy film. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. It launched a franchise: a sequel in 2015 and a prequel television series in 2024. That is a real result for a first-time director working from his own story.
The published critical score is 6.2 out of 10. Ted is funny in stretches and shapeless as a whole, and its best idea — that a grown man’s oldest friendship might be the thing holding him back — is the one it treats as a punchline. The bear is the achievement. The movie around him is a vehicle that never quite decides where it is going.
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