That Awkward Moment

The title conjures teens and text-speak (Dat Awky Momo, anyone?), but writer-director Tom Gormican's debut feature owes as much to Woody Allen as it does the American Pie movies. The likeable script featured on the 2010 Hollywood Black List of best unproduced screenplays.

Anchored by a three-way bromance between boys-about-town Efron, Teller and Jordan, That Awkward Moment begins, as so many bromances before it, with a ludicrous bet. When heartbroken his marriage implodes, Mikey (Michael B Jordan) and BFs Daniel (Rabbit Hole's Miles Teller) and Jason (Zac Efron) swear off serial dating and steady relationships in favour of floozies and alcohol.

Their pact, inevitably, coincides with the appearance of at least two irresistible women: the fiercely independent Ellie (Imogen Poots) and pal-with-possibilities Chelsea (Mackenzie Davis). Who, among the smitten gents, will hold out on holding out? And when did bros start behaving like the Sex and the City girls?

No matter. Between the film’s broader moments – Mikey retreating into buckets of ice cream, Daniel’s Viagra emergency call – Gormican strives to make an urbane sex comedy. It’s useful that the first-time film-maker remembered to write some decent dialogue and characters for the female speaking parts. Indeed, it’s a novel enough innovation to allow the film to shine from behind its rather familiar plot.

The cast, helpfully, bring enough youthful vigour to offset the script's less witty tangents. Poots and Efron, both former child stars, make for a dazzling screen couple. Teller, who bagged the Dramatic Special Jury Award for Acting at Sundance 2013 for his work on The Spectacular Now, is so agreeably daft, we're just about ready to forgive him for his part in Project X. And the Footloose remake. And 21 & Over. Jordan works the fall guy angle with aplomb.