Ed Helms and Patti Harrison are having a baby! But as the film’s title suggests, they’re not actually “Together Together,” as in being a couple.
More specifically, Helms in the film — and seen in the first trailer above — plays a single, straight, middle-aged man who looks to a stranger, the 20-something Harrison, to be a surrogate for his child. But the unusual circumstance for their arrangement proves confusing and challenging for them as they try and figure out what this relationship is and what it will be after she gives birth.
In a way it’s a rom-com without the romance, but it’s a smart, thoughtful comedy about companionship and commitments that proved to be a crowd-pleasing favorite coming out of this year’s Sundance.
“It’s weird to be perceived as hopeless in this moment when I’m actually very hopeful,” Helms says in the trailer. “Sometimes people just connect. It’s not about being attracted to one another.”
Nikole Beckwith wrote and directed “Together Together,” and TheWrap praised both the film and Harrison for her “star-making” performance. She has a standout moment in this trailer where she acknowledges she’s raising a straight white baby and just gave him a podcast while still in the womb.
“It’s bright and witty and packed with laughs, but those laughs stem from real empathy and understanding of its characters,” TheWrap’s Alonso Duralde wrote in his review. “[Harrison’s] skill at a prickly rejoinder is downright surgical, but the waves of emotions passing over her face in closeup as Anna gives birth are devastatingly poignant.”
Also starring in the film are Tig Notaro as Helms and Harrison’s relationship council, “Veep’s” Sufe Bradshaw as their nurse, Julio Torres as Harrison’s deadpan best friend and Fred Melamed and Nora Dunn as Helms’ disapproving parents.
Bleecker Street is releasing the film in theaters on April 23 and on digital on May 11. Check out the first trailer here and above.