IF YOU lived through the fag end of Irish showband culture, you will recall that, right up to the early 1980s, the charts would often include two versions of the same popular song.
At No 2 you'd have Sister Sledge's funky, bump-and- grind take on We Are Family. A few places lower, you'd encounter Maureen McCowpat and the Massey Fergusons with their own, weirdly de-sexed version of the same tune.
The Irish record would be dreary, plodding and stubbornly unglamorous. But, stripped of any dangerous eroticism, it tended to have a cosy charm to it. Here was something you could play to your granny. (If you didn’t much like your granny.)
Where is this going? The uncompromisingly useless She's Out of My Leagueis, essentially, The Massey Fergusons' take on a Judd Apatow film. A bunch of friends sit around talking about girls and, eventually, one of them, despite his humdrum looks, gets to date somebody who looks like a movie star. The lead is not quite Michael Cera (it's lesser Apatow collaborator Jay Baruchel). His friend, though curly of hair, is not Seth Rogen (it's some semi-talent named TJ Miller). The girl is not Kathryn Heigl (it's the still up-and- coming Alice Eve).
Keeping our showband metaphor gaily afloat, She's Out of My Leagueproves to be less smutty and less misogynistic than the average Apatow film. Unfortunately – go, ye Masseys! – it also proves to be scrappily acted, chaotically scripted and glumly unfamiliar with the natural rhythms of the romcom.
Mind you, at least one body of people will be happy. The Pittsburgh Film Commission (I looked it up) has ensured that every notable building in their city was included in at least one shot. Go, Steel City!
