Celeste and Jesse Forever

The most adorable screen couple of the year is getting a divorce. At least, this is the case in the funny, snarky, finely tuned romantic comedy “Celeste and Jesse Forever.” After a terrible start, during which I was afraid I was in for another “Take This Waltz” style insufferably quirky, indie-movie couple, “Celeste and Jesse Forever” turns into a smart charmer of a semi-mainstream romantic comedy. Celeste (co-screenwriter Rashida Jones) and Jesse (Andy Samberg of “Saturday Night Live” and things in boxes) are an about-to-be-divorced Los Angeles couple who are former child-hood sweethearts and are so cute together it makes your teeth ache. The two cannot seem to move forward and start new lives on their own. It might help if the chronically un-employed artist Jesse moved out of the studio behind the house he used to share with Celeste. But he cannot -afford to pay rent, so ... Childlike Gen Y couples and their parents, this story is for you. Celeste is an annoying smartypants author, who spots trends for a living and works at a marketing company, where she gets romance and dating advice from a gay co-worker (a nice turn by ex-hobbit Elijah Wood). She and Jesse still hang out together and perform a tiresome lewd gag and adopt phony German accents for no reason other than to irritate their friends. They also continue to say “I love you” to one another. But when Jesse learns that a recent one-night stand has resulted in a pregnancy, he appears to recognize an opportunity to take a big step and tries to start a relationship with the girl, Veronica (Rebecca Dayan), for the sake of their child. It’s a sweet development and not easily pulled off by him given his still ambiguous feelings for Celeste. Harvard grad Jones, co-writer Will McCormack and director Lee Toland Krieger (“The Vicious Kind”) acknowledge a form of Ivy League snobbery among L.A.’s movers and shakers and an insiders-friendly L.A. art scene when Veronica’s connections get Jesse a show of his own at the hip Gagosian Gallery. In one of the film’s more amusing subplots, Celeste is assigned to follow the bratty, spoiled rotten, Miley Cyrus-like music star Riley Banks (a never better Emma Roberts) for music and fashion trend-spotting, and the two become extremely unlikely confidantes. Meanwhile, Celeste and Jesse’s friends Beth (Ari Graynor) and Tucker (Eric Christian Olsen) are about to get married at a posh oceanfront home in Rhode Island and the exes are -invited. Awkward. Between the hipster slang, yoga references and compulsive wisecracking, “Celeste and Jesse Forever” has a lot of heart, and co-writer Jones might just be a star. Courtesy: James Verniere, The Boston HeraldOfficial Trailer