Fridae

While the screwball comedy went out of fashion by the 1940s, Adam Sandler created the romantic comedy for passive-aggressive man-boys in the 1990s and Judd Apatow (Superbad, Knocked Up, The 40-year-old Virgin) revolutionised it a decade later, combining sweet natured humour with R rated jokes, often featuring the quest of an average man-boy to get laid and ultimately be accepted for who is he by someone way hotter.

She’s out of my league may appear to be like many of Apatow’s productions, but its creators seem pretty sure that you’ve never seen anything similar to this before. This may well be chutzpah, but I think they’re right. She’s out of my league is a deconstruction of the male romantic comedy genre, stripping it down to the genre’s real roots, and then having fun with the consequences that follow.

The film’s creators suggest that the male romantic comedy is nothing more than a traditional fairy tale – the kind where the average, not quite attractive, far from rich, hardly networked Ms manages to win the hand of Prince Charming in the end – but with genders reversed. Jay Baruchel is cast as the protagonist, a skinny, shy, and unassuming average Joe who knows he’ll never amount to much in career or romance. Of course, his friends are there to remind him that as a “5” on the hottie scale, he’ll never snag a “10” - and his family is there mostly to put him down for his aspirations, pace Cinderella.

And as in any old fairy tale, our protagonist, Mr Average, will have a shot at snagging Ms Perfect. I don’t think I need to divulge the details, safe to say that the proceedings involve a fair bit of R-rated situations and jokes, friendly male bonding, and a lot of sweet-natured and affirming comedy that has been increasingly missing from Apatow’s productions.

As a romantic comedy, She’s out of my league is not too raunchy. Its belief that everyone has their own Mr/Ms Perfect out there, regardless of their own attractiveness, makes for an ideal first date movie.