The director Tom Dey obviously cherishes 1930s comedies, and he confidently guides a screenplay (by Tom Astle and Matt Ember) that has some of the sass and bite of those oldies through the screwball rapids. It's all about tone. And until the movie succumbs to sugar shock at the end, it remains brisk and tart. McConaughey and Parker (in a role not far removed from Carrie Bradshaw) make well-matched sparring partners.
True to screwball tradition, the subsidiary characters flesh out the comedy. The funniest is Paula's sarcastic roommate, Kit (Zooey Deschanel), who shoots off deadpan one-liners with the aplomb of a curvaceous young Eve Arden. Kit has a thing about birds that chatter all night and keep her awake. And in the movie's best scene, she enlists Ace to shoot an offending mockingbird, and then, overcome with guilt over its possible demise, has him administer mouth-to-beak artificial respiration.
Failure to Launch (the colorless title seems more appropriate to a fizzled liftoff at Cape Canaveral) has its ick factor in the pesky presence of an adorable gap-toothed moppet who accompanies Tripp to sports events. That relationship is explained in a strained back story tacked on to make Tripp more sympathetic. But that's how it goes these days on the romantic comedy planet. An abundance of ice cream is necessary to blot out the taste of spinach.
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