Jason Orley on ‘I Want You Back’: ‘We did not have the big, running kiss’ 

The director says, while the film has one rom-com staple, the wedding, he felt it did not need the other

The three-time Emmy-nominated Siddhartha Khosla ( This is Us, Only Murders in the Building) has given music for the charming rom-com  I Want You Back. “We talked about how to tell this timeless story in a contemporary way,” says director Jason Orley.

Speaking from the Four Seasons at Beverly Hills over a video call, Orley says, “There is this opening credit montage, for example, where you are seeing Instagram posts set to this old standard love song. The whole film is a juxtaposition of seeing modern characters living in the present, talking about dating and losing their phones. The job of the music is to remind you that these stories are timeless.” 

The music was highlighting that theme, says Orley. “ I Want You Back is also an intimate story of two characters. We did not want the music to overpower them, so we just kept the piano. And then something special happened. Sid had this score that played through the movie on his piano and we thought it would be nice if we could set lyrics to this. We got Mandy Moore and her husband, Taylor Goldsmith, to listen to the score and they turned it into a song. They wrote lyrics and that is the song you hear at the end of the film, ‘Finding You Backwards’. The score evolves from this tune you have been hearing through the film into a real song. I was proud of that.” 

I Want You Back tells the story of Peter (Charlie Day) and Emma (Jenny Slate) who decide the best way to get back their loves, Anne (Gina Rodriguez) and Noah (Scott Eastwood), back is by sabotaging their new relationships. Noah is seeing Ginny (Clark Backo) while Anne’s new boyfriend is Logan (Manny Jacinto).

Casting, Orley says, was trickier than expected. “These couples have to make sense together. You have to believe in the main couple, and also in the others. You cannot just cast individual actors, you have to cast the entire group and hope that everyone has great chemistry together. A film like this hinges on the chemistry between the characters.”

Charlie Day, Orley says was already attached to the film. “That was a big reason why I wanted to do this film, I am a huge fan of his. Jenny Slate was someone I had always wanted to work with.” 

A great fan of rom-coms for the comfort factor, Orley says when he read the script of  I Want You Back, he was reminded of the great old rom-coms. “I had not read or seen any good ones in the last few years that jumped out at me. All the films I was watching in the genre were 10 or more years old. After I read this script, I met the writers and the producer and begged to be able to make this film. I gave them my pitch and luckily, they agreed.”