Jake Lacy

‘How to Be Single’ tackles the ambitious task of encapsulating single life in the new millennium with predictably frustrating results.

From the opening credits sequence, Love the Coopers feels like classic studio holiday schmaltz. Santa Clauses ride around town, dogs dressed in Hanukkah and Christmas garb embrace, and families take pictures for greeting cards. The Fleet Foxes’ “White Winter Hymnal” scores the montage, completing an idyllic portrait of dull but harmless seasonal cheer.

It begins and ends with a look. In that look is hesitance, longing, desire, confusion, confidence, conviction, hope. Even love. On NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour, writer and critic Glenn Weldon described real chemistry between actors living in the look, elaborating on the attraction manifesting in the movement of the eyes.

Obvious Child is an indie rom-com that wears its obvious heart on its obvious sleeve. Writer-director Gillian Robespierre does a good job with the lighter material, but her script falters when things start getting heavy.