<\/p>\n
The saddest romantic comedy ever, or maybe the most lighthearted tragedy in years, Derek Cianfrance\u2019s \u201cRoofman\u201d is a film that perfectly embodies the description of its lead character delivered by a correctional officer halfway through the movie.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a very smart individual, probably genius level,\u201d says the prison guard. \u201cHe\u2019s also a complete idiot.\u201d<\/p>\n
More from TheWrap<\/strong><\/p>\n There you have Jeffrey Manchester, a real-life Army veteran who robbed 40-some McDonald\u2019s restaurants by cutting holes in the roof, was sent to prison for 45 years, escaped, lived undetected in a Toys \u201cR\u201d Us for six months and risked it all by romancing a churchgoing single mother.<\/p>\n His glaring contradictions form the bedrock of Cianfrance\u2019s film, which embraces the duality by playing up the charm and likeability of a rom-com couple whose meet-cute involves a prison break and a bag of stolen toys. Cianfrance\u2019s last few movies \u2014 the harrowing relationship story \u201cBlue Valentine,\u201d the multi-generational epic \u201cThe Place Beyond the Pines\u201d and the weighty \u201cThe Light Between Oceans\u201d \u2014 have been predominantly dark. \u201cRoofman\u201d feels lighter, friendlier and funnier.<\/p>\n But as the Paramount Pictures film goes on, its pleasures play out under the shadow of an all-but-inevitable doom; this is a film that feels enjoyable, but only if you can ignore what\u2019s coming for these characters.<\/p>\n Still, there\u2019s a very good reason Channing Tatum was chosen to play Manchester. The film keeps telling us that Jeffrey is a good guy even though he robs McDonald\u2019s in an attempt to provide for the three children he and his estranged wife have. It\u2019s easier to shrug off that string of felonies if the felon is played by the effortlessly charming Tatum, who somehow gets us to believe he\u2019s just a little misguided.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the part of the story where I hope you\u2019re wondering how a nice guy like me got involved in this,\u201d he says in a voiceover in the opening moments of the film, and it\u2019s to his credit that we swallow the \u201cnice guy like me\u201d line. (I mean, hey, he gave the McDonald\u2019s manager his hoodie before locking the guy in the walk-in refrigerator!)<\/p>\n Jeffrey, we\u2019re told by his old Army buddy Steve (Lakeith Stanfield), has the remarkable ability to notice things that other people don\u2019t, which makes him an asset in war zones and also in small towns with restaurants ripe for robbing. And when he\u2019s sent to prison for one of those robberies that goes bad, his skill set also means that he can figure out how to get out.<\/p>\n The problem is that whole genius\/idiot thing. Jeffrey wants to stay in the Charlotte area because that\u2019s where his kids are, though he knows to contact them would result in immediate arrest. He stumbles on a Toys \u201cR\u201d Us store and hides there, first in a crawlspace and later in a more luxurious hideaway he fashions behind a wall of bicycles.<\/p>\n All of this plays out with a light touch, and with music by Christopher Bear that manages to be playful and a little sentimental even in the prison scenes. Between the tone of the film and the easygoing appeal of Tatum, \u201cRoofman\u201d gives us little choice but to root for Jeffrey, even when he puts on roller skates and does some questionable Tom Cruise\/\u201dRisky Business\u201d moves in the toy store aisles or attacks the Tickle Me Elmo display in a fit of frustration.<\/p>\n And while he doesn\u2019t really mean to start romancing Leigh Wainscott (Kirsten Dunst) when he brings a bag of pilfered goods to the toy drive she runs at a local church, he does it so naturally and she responds so eagerly that we kind of have to root for them, too. It helps that Dunst is grounded as always, and under normal circumstances they\u2019d be an ideal rom-com couple.<\/p>\n But these are not normal circumstances. Cianfrance\u2019s movie may play like a rom-com, but the rom and the com are taking place under a giant shadow; no matter how much you want to see these crazy kids succeed, you can\u2019t ignore that settling down to cozy domesticity in the city where law enforcement knows what he looks like and is searching for him is simply not going to happen.<\/p>\n So this is a rom-com with a big but. There\u2019s a hysterical scene where Jeffrey is bathing himself in the toy store restroom when the store manager (Peter Dinklage) shows up unexpectedly and confronts the stark-naked intruder \u2026 but that just means he\u2019s probably going to be caught sooner. There\u2019s a fun scene where Jeffrey and Leigh shop for a used car and his wild driving helps mend tensions with Leigh\u2019s teenage daughter \u2026 but a photo of the happy family with their new car can only be one more opportunity for someone to spot Jeffrey.<\/p>\n \u201cRoofman\u201d has it both ways; it\u2019s funny and foreboding, sweet and troubling, light on its feet but with an inescapable undertone of uneasiness, even dread. Jeffrey works hard to keep way too many balls in the air \u2014 relationships, hiding places, escape plans put together by Steve and his girlfriend Michelle (Juno Temple) \u2014 while Leigh puts on a brave face that can\u2019t hide her increasing doubts (something Dunst is exceptionally good at conveying without calling attention to what she\u2019s doing).<\/p>\n The tonal juggling act isn\u2019t always seamless, but in a way, the contradictions are what give \u201cRoofman\u201d its life. It\u2019s a sad movie, really, but it\u2019s also a lot of fun. And if that doesn\u2019t make sense, maybe it\u2019s the whole point.<\/p>\n For TheWrap\u2019s complete TIFF coverage, go here.<\/p>\n The post \u2018Roofman\u2019 Review: Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst Are a Charmingly Doomed Couple in Dark Rom-Com<\/a> appeared first on TheWrap<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The saddest romantic comedy ever, or maybe the most lighthearted tragedy in years, Derek Cianfrance\u2019s \u201cRoofman\u201d is a film that perfectly embodies the description of its lead character delivered by a correctional officer halfway through the movie. \u201cHe\u2019s a very smart individual, probably genius level,\u201d says the prison guard. \u201cHe\u2019s also a complete idiot.\u201d More […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2003376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[364745,320289,350311,362271,350306,364747,364744,319843,364746],"class_list":["post-2003375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-army-veteran","tag-channing-tatum","tag-derek-cianfrance","tag-jeffrey-manchester","tag-kirsten-dunst","tag-leigh-wainscott","tag-mcdonalds-restaurants","tag-paramount-pictures","tag-prison-break"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Channing-Tatum-and-Kirsten-Dunst-Are-a-Charmingly-Doomed-Couple.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2003375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2003375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2003375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2003376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2003375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2003375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2003375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}