By: Addison Wylie

Early on in Results, two workout trainers are telling the other not to provoke them.  These two trainers are Trevor and Kat, played by Guy Pearce and Cobie Smulders.  Over the course of Andrew Bujalski’s film, the audience finds out that these two characters need to be provoked in order for them to be challenged, which in turn makes Results interesting.

The person who does most of the poking and prodding is an out-of-shape schlub named Danny, played by an understated and hilarious Kevin Corrigan.  While enduring the wake of an exhausting divorce, Danny wanders over to Trevor’s gym.  We think he wants to change his lifestyle, but he may actually just be really bored and uncertain of how to spend his inheritance.

Results can be very funny.  Watching Danny wander through his downtime and occupy himself is amusing, but most of the sparks happen when the loner’s awkward bluntness has Kat second-guessing her faithful connection to her career, which triggers Trevor to question his constantly waffling personality.  We always see the gears turning thanks to Bujalski’s terrifically perceptive screenplay.

After now seeing a couple of Andrew Bujalski’s films (this one and the unusual Computer Chess), I’m seeing a pattern.  It appears the filmmaker gets cold feet when trying to close the deal.  It’s as if he envisions his movie not being able to fit into a concrete category at the end of the day.  His unnecessary Hail Mary passes during his films’ final third make the audience more aware of how badly he’s scrambling.

In Results, Bujalski removes Danny from the movie’s leading equation – a detrimental decision.  This leaves the trainers to be left with nothing to push them in any direction.  Pearce and Smulders are two perfectly watchable performers, but the romantic potential in Bujalski’s writing doesn’t have enough sustainability to flesh out these characters.

All is not lost though.  The chemistry between Pearce and Smulders is fairly convincing, and Anthony Michael Hall collects some small snickers in a brief role as Trevor’s brawny inspiration.

Results is a decent little movie, but there’s no arguing that it’s infinitely better when Corrigan is at work.