The Ex

THE EX is an enjoyable little romantic comedy that finds Zach Braff of TV’s SCRUBS somewhat typecast as a lovable, mildly nebbishy screw-up with a beautiful wife (Amanda Peet) and a new baby. After losing his job yet again, Braff’s character decides to move his family from New York to Ohio, where his wife is from, and go to work for her father, who works for an advertising agency. Pretty standard stuff up to that point, but then Braff’s immediate superior at the ad agency turns out to be his wife’s old high school boyfriend, who’s in a wheelchair and was back in high school, too. As played very well by Jason Bateman as a smarmy, apparently charming sociopath, this guy turns out to be the villain of the piece and gives the movie a bizarre edge that lifts it out of the commonplace. Short, fairly funny, and well-written, THE EX is worth watching.