Remember Carly Rae Jepsen, the bubble-gum popstar that smashed 2012 apart with her infamous sugar-sweet jam ‘Call Me Maybe’? Of course you do, and in case you’ve been living under a rock, the 29-year old has returned to form this year with the equally infectious ‘I Really Like You’, however the accompanying music vid is a shocker.
Jepsen and co. somehow enlisted the likes of Academy Award winner Tom Hanks who stars as the centrepiece of the clip, the adored 58-year old actor lip syncing Jepsen’s lyrics whilst he strolls through city streets, which sounds cool and all – except for the fact that it’s horrendously awkward and Hanks is sporting a painful grimace the whole time.
The beginning of the clip sees a groggy Hanks climb out of bed, mouthing the opening lines of the song almost completely out of time, which continues throughout the entire video. The cringe factor only grows as Hanks has some fun sending cute lil’ emojis to Jepsen as well as featuring on Tinder before the bizarre “I’m pregnant/just kidding” lyric, argh.
It reaches it’s exit button pinnacle toward the end where Hanks and Jepsen are joined by tens of others randomly dancing in the snow, before the king of cool Justin Bieber pops up to round out the ultimate trio dance-off that you never asked for.
Even if this is meant to be a little tongue-in-cheek because everyone in the world “really really likes” Tom Hanks and he is therefore the perfect subject for the clip and to keep the sentiment light-hearted he acts a little silly, it’s still weird – no question.
That’s not to say that ‘I Really Like You’ is a bad song, it’s easily one of pop’s finest releases of the year thus far and is almost impossible not to belt out even after spinning once, the video however, is just really awkward.
Check the video for ‘I Really Like You’ below: