Taglines: How can a 10 go for a 5?
Twenty-something Kirk Kettner (Jay Baruchel) works as a TSA agent at the Pittsburgh airport. He still hangs out with his high school buddies and co-workers, Jack (Mike Vogel), Stainer (T.J. Miller) and Devon (Nate Torrence) and imagines of getting back together with his ex-girlfriend, Marnie (Lindsay Sloane), who has long since moved on. All in all, Kirk seems content to simply maintain the status quo-until the day Molly (Alice Eve) sashays through his security checkpoint at the airport and accidentally leaves her cell phone behind.
Molly is smart, sophisticated, devastatingly beautiful-and completely out of Kirk’s league. When Kirk returns the phone as a courtesy, she offers to repay the favor with a pair of hockey game tickets, and he accepts, never thinking for one second that this dream girl is asking him out on a date. The pair couldn’t seem less suited to each other, a fact that Kirk’s friends and family waste no time pointing out to him. She, in Stainer’s words, is a “hard 10, the top of the dating food chain, while Kirk is struggling to keep his status at five.
Nonetheless, Molly is determined to win him over and as Kirk struggles to understand why such a gorgeous girl would be interested in him, he starts to think maybe she sees something no one else can. After being wined and dined by the most beautiful woman he’s ever met, Kirk is finally starting to believe in himself and contemplate a different future. Then he makes a disastrous first impression on Molly’s upper-crust parents, and the relationship is over as quickly as it began.
She’s Out of My League is an American romantic comedy film directed by Jim Field Smith and written by Sean Anders and John Morris. The film stars Jay Baruchel and Alice Eve, and was produced by Jimmy Miller and David Householter for Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks and filmed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Production on the film finished in 2008. The film received its wide theatrical release on March 12, 2010. The film is director Jim Field Smith’s first feature.
About the Production
When producers Jimmy Miller, David Householter and George Gatins began work on She’s Out of My League, they agreed the film’s success would ultimately hinge on keeping the tone real and the characters believable. “We all knew that what made the script unique was a combination of outrageous laughs, genuine emotion and real affection for the characters, says executive producer Gatins. “We wanted to make a movie with heart. If the characters aren’t presented as real people rather than caricatures, then an audience isn’t going to become emotionally invested in whether or not they get together.
The producers’ first step was to find a director who shared their sensibility and vision. “We had seen a short film by a young British commercial and sketch comedy director named Jim Field Smith, recalls Gatins. “Jim had never directed a feature before, but he obviously had a flair for comedy that comes from a place that’s very real.
Field Smith was in London, where he lives and works, when he got a surprise phone call from his agent in Los Angeles telling him DreamWorks had him in mind to direct a romantic comedy. “I really loved the script, he recalls, “because the comedy came from the characters rather than being pure formula. I put myself on the next plane to Los Angeles and came out to meet with the producers.
Field Smith sensed that screenwriters Sean Anders & Tim Morris had tapped into a universal experience. “It was such a solid concept and also had these fantastic characters, he says. “I had read high-concept comedies and thought ‘wow, that’s great but I don’t know if I’m the right guy to direct that.’ This could have been just another geek gets hot girl story, but under the broader, more basic comedy, there’s an emotional core, and the fusion of the two is where the heart of the script is. Because of that, we can have the most outrageous scenes, but when they’re seen in the context of everything you know about the characters, you accept those scenes as real, and hopefully funny, situations.
“That’s my kind of comedy, the director continues. “I want to see characters who are real and relatable and then see them go through hell, because I want to imagine how I would react in that situation. “It’s funny seeing someone slip on a banana peel. But what’s funnier to me, is to see someone slip on a banana peel, and then while they’re lying on the ground their phone rings and it’s their girlfriend saying ‘you’re dumped.’ That to me is immediately 400 times funnier, because they have to pick themselves off the ground metaphorically as well as literally.
After speaking with Field Smith, the producers were convinced he had the ideal approach to the material. “Jim didn’t just focus on the two main characters, says Gatins. “There are a lot of characters in the movie and they all hold an important place. He seemed to know how to handle everybody and make them distinctly different.
The film’s leading male character, Kirk Kettner, works in airport security, but has always dreamed of being a pilot. Although the two jobs are close geographically, they are miles apart in terms of status and glamour, observes Field Smith. “Kirk is waiting for something to happen to him, but he’s not motivated enough to do anything about it. That is a situation a lot of young people find themselves in.
Meanwhile, Molly, who was briefly a lawyer and is now happily running a party planning business with her friend Patty, is afraid to tell her parents. “The simple version of the movie is that she gives him the confidence to be himself and not care what anyone else thinks, says Field Smith.
But despite her brains and beauty, Molly finds something in Kirk she didn’t even know she was looking for. “He holds the candle up to some of the problems and fallacies of her life, the director continues. “Maybe she’s a 10 physically, but she’s concerned with money and what her friends think and how she looks-things that he doesn’t care about at all. It’s only because they start listening to the subversive voices in their heads and to their friends that it starts to go wrong.
That advice begins with Kirk’s pal’s devising a not-so-foolproof system of calculating a person’s romantic potential. T. J. Miller, whose character Stainer is the ultimate arbiter of the rating system, explains the complex algorithms that form its basis. It begins with a simple one to 10 rating system, with 10 being the best, and one the worst. A select few, like Molly, are “hard 10s, which means they really have no drawbacks.
From that initial number, Stainer applies exemptions, add-ons and deductions. What kind of car do you drive? If you drive a crummy car, that’s going to deduct a point-unless you’re an artist because you’re expected to have a bad car. A guy can get a point bump for being in a band or dressing cool or doing a little manscaping.
Based on Stainer’s calculations, Kirk is a five (that beat-up Neon he drives works against him), which puts Molly well outside the permissible two-point range. “Personally I would never rate women on a number system, says Miller. “I have my own rating system. To me, women should be rated on an alphanumeric code. For instance, some women would be an 849B.
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She’s Out of My League (2010)
Directed by: Jim Field Smith
Starring: Jay Baruchel, Alice Eve, T.J. Miller, Nate Torrence, Krysten Ritter, Geoff Stults, Lindsay Sloane, Kyle Bornheimer, Jessica St. Clair, Krysten Ritter, Debra Jo Rupp, Jasika Nicole
Screenplay by: Sean Anders, John Morris
Production Design by: Clayton Hartley
Cinematography by: Jim Denault
Film Editing by: Dan Schalk
ostume Design by: Molly Maginnis
Set Decoration by: Casey Hallenbeck
Art Direction by: Jim Gloster
Music by: Michael Andrews
MPAA Rating: R for for language and sexual content.
Distributed by: DreamWorks Pictures
Release Date: March 12, 2010