Are We Officially Dating? — get ready for a string of awkward moments

This curious affair was released a fortnight ago in the US under the admirably honest title of That Awkward Moment.

Are We Officially Dating?

Rating: 2.5 stars

Director: Tom Gormican (feature debut)

Starring: Zac Efron, Imogen Poots, Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan

Goes alright for a one-night stand

This curious affair was released a fortnight ago in the US under the admirably honest title of That Awkward Moment.

To be frank, the movie is filled with them. Par for the course when you tip the time-honoured rom-com on its head and go for broke.

Or should that be go for bloke? Yep, that’s right, Are We Officially Dating? weirdly pitches itself as a chick flick for fellas. Young, single, sex-obsessed fellas who wish they had a chick to go to the flicks with.

Zac Efron stars as Jason, a lady-killing hipster who proudly ditches any woman who dares to ask for anything resembling a relationship.

Life is one long blur of bimbos, bars and booty calls for Jason, and his good buddies Daniel (Miles Teller) and Mikey (Michael B. Jordan) are on the same page of the playboy’s playbook.

Then Jason meets Ellie (Imogen Poots), a gorgeous writing type who just might have what it takes to break the friends-with-benefits barrier.

She is quite a catch. He is quite smitten. So what’s the hitch? Jason thinks he will no longer be the pantsman hero of Daniel and Mikey if he suddenly stops playing the field.

What Jason doesn’t know, however, is that Daniel and Mikey are secretly settling down as well.

Though the plot is predictable, the dialogue walks a tightrope between the self-damningly sexist and the smartly smutty, often to surprisingly electric effect.

Some cool casting chemistry is definitely what saves Are We Officially Dating? from imploding into inanity. Poots has an ungainly energy that actually blanks out all of Efron’s blandness.

Meanwhile, heavy-hitting support players Teller (already a name to watch after 2012’s underrated The Spectacular Now) and Jordan (ditto for Fruitvale Station) steal every scene they can from the lightweight leading man.