In Bert and Arnie's Guide to Friendship, the obnoxious behavior of the leads is heartily indulged, gently critiqued, and eventually subjected to a rather perfunctory alteration. Enjoyment of Jeff Kaplan's film will vary given your capacity to simultaneously laugh and wink at the hijinks of two of the least palatable characters to share screen time in recent years. While scuzzy finance guy Arnie (Stephen Schneider) fucks his way across New York, successful novelist Bert (Matt Oberg) exhibits a writerly ego gone amok, refusing to teach his students any books but his own. The two come together when Arnie screws Bert's wife, leading to a divorce for the writer and a tenuous, mutually selfish friendship between the two men. That bond is tested when both fall for the same woman, Sabri...
- 6/19/2013
- Village Voice
Remember these names: Matt Oberg, Stephen Schneider, Anna Chlumksy (if you grew up in the nineties, you already know her), and Cristin Milioti. They are the stars of the horribly titled “Bert and Arnie's Guide To Friendship,” a new indie that is a bit slight, often funny, mostly likable, and importantly, a romantic comedy that is not obnoxious. Its premise is nothing new, to be sure, but director Jeff Kaplan’s film has more humor and verve than almost every new sitcom that debuted on network television in the past year, and in Oberg, Schneider, Chlumsky, and especially Milioti, it has four fine comic performers who elevate director Jeff Kaplan's script (co-written with Ian Springer) into a modest success.Oberg’s B. W. “Bert” Scheering is a full-of-himself college professor and the noted author of a hit novel (title: “The Virgin Monster”) who discovers that his wife is sleeping with Arnie,...
- 6/18/2013
- by Christopher Schobert
- The Playlist
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