Following on from the Peter Dinklage-starring Cyrano earlier in the year, comes another adaptation of Edmond Rostand‘s evergreen yearning romance. Scott Coffey‘s take on the story is a much more modest affair than Joe Wright‘s opulent musical, relocating to story to a modern high-school setting. It’s a likable affair, even though it suffers from a sense of over-familiarity, in terms of its much-adapted source material, and its adherence to the tropes of the contemporary teen rom-com.

Cy Berger (Jared Gilman) is a teenage boy with a self-esteem issue, not helped when a video of Cy suffering a public instance of an affliction all-too-common to teenage boys goes viral at his school. He instantly falls for new girl Roxy (Aurora Perrineau) when she shows sympathy instead of ridicule. She also draws the admiration of cool-but-dim Chris (David Gridley), who enlists the help of Cy to embellish his intellectual tastes on social media and help to win the intelligent, cultured Roxy. As Cy’s words have Chris’ desired effect on Roxy, Cy begins to wonder if he couldn’t win her over himself.

Coffey’s version of the tale is solidly in the now, with the young men’s deceitful pursuit of Rox(anne)y filmly depicted as an egregious instance of catfishing, and with the standard ambivalence to the omnipresence of social media – several characters are influencers, but cases of bullying are exacerbated by the sharing of videos – but the story is very much there. Add in the presence of Cy’s cute, devoted best friend (Mikey Madison), and you can be assured of very little surprises. Yet, it’s winningly performed, and is deftly written so to function entirely well as an adaptation of a classic story, and as a perfectly solid romantic comedy.

It Takes Three does occasionally trip over competing impulses. The film’s DNA can be traced from the ’80s John Hughes movies through to American Pie‘s millennial ribaldry, but can’t commit to the gross-out due to its more contemporary progressive tendencies. So while Cy’s pesky public erection is only missing a reaction shot of badger-browed horror from Eugene Levy and Gridley’s Chris feels like an amalgamation of Stifler and Chris Klein‘s sweetly gormless Oz, Cy has been lovingly raised by two mums and his physical insecurities point inwardly to body dysmorphia, rather than an obvious characteristic like Cyrano’s traditional nose, or Dinklage’s short stature. As such, it feels like the comedy is occasionally reined in, and while there are some solid laughs there, it feels like the script has had its claws clipped at some point.

In terms of its post-modern staging of a classic text (itself a trend that feels solidly ’90s), the film most closely resembles the Shakespeare-riffing 10 Things I Hate About You, and while It Takes Three is unlikely to have that film’s curious timelessness, it doesn’t suffer too badly in comparison. While hardly a reinvention of the genre, It Takes Three is indicative of the way the teen rom-com has evolved to appeal to firmly Gen Z concerns.

Available to stream from Mon 24 Oct 2022