“That Awkward Moment” is a movie about three friends who refuse to grow up, and it wants you to believe that refusing to grow up is funny. It is not. It is a lazy, repetitive comedy that repeats the same joke about avoiding commitment for nearly two hours. Zac Efron, Miles Teller, and Michael B. Jordan play Jason, Daniel, and Mikey, three young men who vow to stay single together forever. When all three start dating women at once, they hide it from each other. That is the entire plot.
Tom Gormican directs and writes the film, which is his directorial debut. It premiered in Los Angeles on January 27, 2014, and opened wide across the United States four days later on January 31. The cast includes Imogen Poots as Ellie Andrews, Mackenzie Davis as Chelsea, Jessica Lucas as Vera Walker, and Addison Timlin as Alana. The film runs 94 minutes.
Trailer, via eOne UK.
The Pact and Its Limits
The premise sounds clever on paper. Three guys make a pact to stay single, then break it anyway. The problem is that the movie never gives this setup anywhere near enough room to breathe. Instead, it keeps repeating the same scene: one of the guys meets a girl, sleeps with her, then hides the relationship from the others. The cycle repeats with each of the three leads, and by the time the third variation arrives, the joke has stopped working.
“When you realize getting some means wanting more.”
That is the tagline. It is also the film’s thesis statement, and it is wrong. The movie spends 94 minutes proving the opposite: that getting some does not mean wanting more, it just means doing the same thing again.
Jason’s Voiceover
Jason narrates the film, explaining that every relationship reaches the “So…” moment, where someone wants to take things further. At that point, Jason knows the relationship is over, because he is not ready for a serious relationship. This framing device should give the story depth. It does not. The voiceover is used as filler, padding out scenes that would otherwise be brief, and it adds nothing to the storytelling.
The opening scene has Jason sitting on a bench in New York City, waiting for someone to arrive. He explains that he has been waiting for a long time, but to explain why, he needs to go back to the beginning. That is the film’s structure in miniature: a promise of explanation that never delivers one.
Daniel’s Book Covers
Daniel works with Jason at a publishing house, designing book covers. This is meant to be a character detail, giving Daniel a job and a skill. It is not developed. The book cover design is never shown, and Daniel’s work is never mentioned again. It exists only to establish that Daniel has a job, not to add anything to the story.
The same goes for Mikey, the doctor. His medical background is barely touched. He is married at the start of the film, then divorced, and that is all we learn about his profession. The movie is interested only in what the men do in their personal lives, not in who they are as people.
Ellie and Chelsea
Imogen Poots plays Ellie Andrews, the woman Jason dates. She is hurt and enraged when Jason leaves her apartment after sleeping with her. The scene is supposed to be the emotional center of the film. It is not. Ellie’s reaction is thin, and the film does not give her any development beyond being the girlfriend who gets left behind.
Mackenzie Davis plays Chelsea, Daniel’s wingman who becomes his girlfriend. Her arc is slightly better, but only because the film gives her slightly more screen time. Neither character earns the weight the plot asks them to carry.
The Pact Falls Apart
The three men’s pact to stay single together for the foreseeable future is the spine of the film. It is also the weakest element. The pact is made early, broken slowly, and then abandoned entirely without any resolution. By the end of the movie, the friends are all dating, and the pact that drove the entire story has simply vanished.
The film’s final act rushes through the consequences of breaking the pact. Jason sends an apology letter in the form of a comic strip to Ellie, who accepts it, and they start seeing each other regularly. Daniel and Chelsea also become a couple. The movie ends with all three pairs happy, but the journey there is a mess.
The Writing Problem
Tom Gormican’s script is the fatal flaw. The jokes are tired, the dialogue is thin, and the character motivations are vague. The film keeps promising insight into male friendship and commitment, then delivers only more of the same behavior it claims to critique. Jason, Daniel, and Mikey are all presented as charming, attractive, and endlessly lucky with women. None of them are particularly likable, and the movie never asks us to care about them beyond the surface.
The film’s central conflict is that the three men want to have fun without responsibility. That is not a conflict, it is a lifestyle. The movie treats it as though it were profound, but it is not. It is just a set of rules that the characters eventually break without any cost.
What Works
There are moments where the film shows flashes of potential. The chemistry between the three leads is real, and when the movie lets them banter without forcing a punchline, the scenes land. There are also a few genuinely awkward situations involving hiding relationships from each other, which the film handles with a light touch. These moments are rare, but they are the reason anyone watches past the first half hour.
The supporting cast deserves credit for showing up despite the weak material. Jessica Lucas is particularly good as Vera Walker, Mikey’s ex-wife, even though the role is underwritten. Addison Timlin appears as Alana, a character whose purpose is never fully explained.
The Score
“That Awkward Moment” is not a good movie, and it is not even a bad movie that could have been saved with better editing. It is a movie that knows exactly what it wants to be—a lightweight comedy about young men—and fails at that. The jokes are stale, the plot is thin, and the characters are shallow. It is a film that trades depth for repetition, and repetition is not comedy.
The film’s tagline promises that getting some means wanting more. The movie proves the opposite. Getting some means doing the same thing again, and again, and again.
3.6 of 10.
Key Facts Box
- Title: That Awkward Moment (2014)
- Director: Tom Gormican
- Writer: Tom Gormican
- Runtime: 94 minutes
- Genres: Comedy, Romance
- Premiere: January 27, 2014 (Los Angeles)
- Wide release: January 31, 2014 (United States)
- Cast: Zac Efron, Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Imogen Poots, Mackenzie Davis, Jessica Lucas, Addison Timlin, Josh Pais, Emily Meade, Evelina Turen, Alysia Reiner, Karen Ludwig
Final Word
The film’s failure is structural. It is built on a premise that cannot sustain a full-length feature, and it never finds a way to fix that. The jokes repeat, the characters behave inconsistently, and the ending ties everything up too neatly. None of it earns the resolution it offers.
That Awkward Moment is forgettable in the best case and tedious in the worst. It is a missed opportunity, a comedy that never commits to its own premise. It is a film that spends 94 minutes telling you it is about something, then reveals it was about nothing at all.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
