Take Me Home Tonight

An MIT graduate frittering away his life as a video-store clerk (Topher Grace) meets his secret crush from high school (Teresa Palmer) and pretends he’s a Goldman Sachs investment banker to impress her. Later, at a party thrown by a former classmate, he struggles to keep up the charade while wishing he hadn’t invented it. Directed by Michael Dowse and written by Jeff and Jackie Filgo (from a story by producer-star Grace and Gordon Kaywin), the movie is a basically inert rehash of the standard wild-all-night-party-that-changes-everything-with-nonstop-nostalgic-oldies-on-the-soundtrack movie, but there are compensations along the way: Grace is pleasant and sympathetic, Anna Faris is comically welcome as his twin sister, and Palmer photographs like a million bucks (thanks to cinematographer Terry Stacey).