AS WE KNOW IT

Stars: Taylor Blackwell, Mike Castle, Oliver Cooper, Danny Mondello, Chris Parnell and Pam Grier.
Writers: Brandon DePaolo, Christopher Francis, Josh Monkarsh.
Director: Josh Monkarsh

Rating: ★ ★ ★

The well-manicured rock gardens of L.A.’s suburban hills are flowing red thanks to Agnes oat milk, a dairy substitute that’s turning Los Angelinos into ravenous zombies in Josh Monkarsh’s As We Know It. This giggly throwback to the teen buddy comedies of the late 90s subs in Mike Castle, as struggling novelist James, and Oliver Cooper, the film’s MVP as oafish stoner Bruce, for ‘Jason Biggs and Seann William Scott’ types; mismatched mates facing off against the undead uprising in a low-key but winningly likable rom-zom-com.

Monkarsh and his co-writing posse of Brandon DePaolo and Christopher Francis don’t leave the connection to chance, setting their story in the late 1990s and riffing on such decade-specific artefacts as Kevin Costner’s Waterworld, brick-like portable home phones, pre-smart TV TVs and those bastions of smallscreen journalism, Geraldo Rivera and Phil Donahue. Also of the period is the Pixie Dream Girl archetype, embodied here by Taylor Blackwell’s doe-eyed and endearingly sassy Emily.

James is in a deep funk, having recently split with Emily; so distracted is he from real life, not only has his writing stalled but he has also failed to cotton-on that his hometown is in the grip of an extinction event. It takes Bruce banging on his front door to bring him into the present; they make to hightail it out of town, but a syphoned gas tank means they have to bunker down in James’ pad (beautifully set decorated by Asiah Thomas-Mandlman and production designed by Lorus Allen).

The ‘rom’ revs up when Emily drops by to say a final goodbye before driving to Seattle with her girlfriends. When the girls meet an ugly demise, Emily is left to survive alongside her ex and his bestie, with whom she also shares an awkward past. In the mix are a food delivery guy on the turn (Danny Mondello), a sexy neighbour (the iconic Pam Grier, clearly having some fun) and SNL alumni Chris Parnell cameoing as an LA affiliate newshound.  

The bittersweet conclusion gels ideally with that particularly late-90s sense of foreboding that the impending new millennium held. Between the lad’s comic chemistry and the occasional teeth-on-flesh ickiness, Monkarsh focuses on the missed opportunity for a soulmate pairing that James and Emily let slip. True love doesn’t quite conquer all in As We Know It, but it is at the centre of this warmly funny spin on the old “better to have loved and lost, than never…” refrain.