'happythankyoumoreplease' review

Josh Radnor and Kate Mara (Credit: Anchor Bay)

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The life of aspiring New York City novelist Sam (Josh Radnor) becomes a novella of quirky characters and plot twists. His best friend Annie (Malin Akerman) is a hairless gal who suffers from an auto-immune disorder, as well as a compulsion to date losers. He impulsively asks a sweet singer-waitress named Mississippi (Kate Mara) to move in with him during their first night together. And oh: He ends up taking a lost foster child, Rasheen (Michael Algieri), under his wing after the kid inadvertently gets separated from his family on the subway. Time to start lining up those "aha!" moments of emo-tinged self-discovery.

The buzz: Radnor, who stars on the hit TV series "How I Met Your Mother," also wrote and directed "happythankyoumoreplease"—his filmmaking debut, which was inspired by themes from his own life. It won the audience award for favorite U.S. drama at Sundance last year.

The verdict: Sweet but maudlin, "happythankyoumoreplease" is constructed from a safe playlist of indie tics and quirks seen in every other twentysomething coming-of-age chronicle. With emo-folksy breakup music, idiosyncratic characters (bald lady sidekick!) and quirky names (Mississippi, holla!), the film does its due diligence to earn derivative indie cred. It also ping-pongs between ensemble piece and journeyman showcase, never quite figuring out which court to play in. Radnor packs his screenplay with secondary story arcs that, although well-acted, blur the movie's focus. (One prominent subplot involves an on-the-rocks couple, played by Zoe Kazan and Pablo Schreiber, having a tug of war about living in New York or L.A.) Eventually, the plot's main thread—Single New Yorker Learns to Be Less Self-Absorbed After Meeting Foster Kid—is relegated to yet another arbitrary twist that's merely milked for its cuteness. "happythankyoumoreplease" aspires to a "Reality Bites"-meets-"About a Boy" hybrid, but in bidding for both, it ends up less than either.

Did you know? Radnor based Rasheen on a real kid named Rasheen whom he knew as a camp counselor in high school, and who had lived in several foster homes himself.

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