A romantic comedy is making money at the box office! And it's one that's starring up-and-coming actors Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney, instead of way-past-their-prime stars like Sandra Bullock or Julia Roberts! This genre isn't dead! I was so excited to see this movie, and my expectations were, perhaps, too high. Because I didn't like this one. I really, really didn't like this one.
I've actually enjoyed all of director Will Gluck's prior films that I've seen. "Easy A" is great and I think his version of "Annie" is pretty underrated. However, after the first ten minutes, nothing about "Anyone But You" works. We have a classic meet cute between our lovers, Ben (Powell) and Bea (Sweeney), who spend a magical night together but are driven apart by a fatal miscommunication. Six months later, their lovely sisters, Halle (Hadley Robinson) and Claudia (Alexandra Shipp) turn out to be getting married to each other, and Bea and Ben are forced to try and get along for the duration of the destination wedding in Australia. And if you know your Shakespeare, you've figured out by now that this is a very loose modern retelling of "Much Ado About Nothing." It's been over a decade since the Whedon version, so I guess we're due.
Powell and Sweeney have some decent chemistry together, but Ben and Bea are very broad, very typical romantic comedy creatures. They talk themselves into a fake romance, are both tempted by conveniently available ex-partners, and get themselves into humiliating bits of physical comedy at the drop of a hat. This sort of thing can be fun if done right, but too much of the farce turns into cringe, and too many of the sweeter moments feel forced. Neither Powell nor Sweeney are comic actors, and they're constantly being asked to do very exaggerated, cartoonish things, and it doesn't work. Oddly, there aren't really any comic relief secondary characters except maybe Pete (rap artist GaTa), the matchmaker figure whose clumsy attempts at matchmaking don't actually do anything, and were maybe meant to be a Shakespeare reference? I think Pete is supposed to be Don Pedro, but he acts more like Dogberry.
Honestly, I'm not much of a Shakespeare buff, but the movie wasn't giving me anything more interesting to focus on. There's a very Hollywood tour of Australia, with the usual jokes about impenetrable Aussie vernacular, an encounter with a cute koala and a scary spider, and some nice shots of the Sydney Opera House. There's the usual wedding eye candy, with two adorable brides constantly in the middle of picture perfect gatherings. One shot of them plating mountains of food for a casual family breakfast was a reminder that we were firmly in the realm of Instagram fantasy. The impetus for several characters trying to intervene in the Ben/Bea hostilities is the threat they physically pose to the wedding - every time they fight, something gets destroyed, because that's how physics works here. The cast includes some familiar faces like Michelle Hurd, Rachel Griffiths, and Dermot Mulroney playing parents-of-the-brides, who are all given nothing to do. By the time we got to the credits sequence with the cast singing along to Natasha Bedingfield's "Unwritten," I was more than ready for the film to be over.
What really gets me is that the opening sequence with Ben and Bea falling in love is pretty good, and feels like the beginning of a much better movie. Clearly, Powell and Sweeney are perfectly capable of starring in a charming, sexy romantic comedy. "Anyone But You," however, is not interested in being charming or sexy. It's interested in being funny, but isn't actually any good at being funny. It's interested in making the audience feel good, but doesn't pull that off either. So my recommendation is to skip this movie, watch "Euphoria" and "The Hitman" if you like the leads, watch "No Hard Feelings" if you actually want a decent 2023 romantic comedy, and track down the Branagh version if you want a better "Much Ado about Nothing."
Exeunt Miss Media Junkie.
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