Anyone But You (Will Gluck, 2023)
Anyone But You is a perfectly fine romantic comedy, with appealing lead performances from rising stars Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney.
This movie was released at the tail end of 2023, so I’m pretty sure at least some of you, my dear readers, will have seen it, and hopefully enjoyed it.
I held out for as long as I did, mainly because there were so many other, high profile and awards movies out there that I was spoilt for choice.
But because Anyone But You became the sleeper hit of the Christmas season, it stayed on my radar. So far, the movie has grossed 175 million dollars worldwide on a 25 million budget, which means its already profitable on its theatrical release alone.
That’s a big achievement, as for the last five years Hollywood kept telling us that romantic comedies were dead, and basically confined to Netflix and other streamers.
So I decided to check it out on my free and lazy Sunday afternoon. And I must admit I enjoyed it a heck of a lot more than I thought I would.
As a movie, I thought it was better than both Ticket To Paradise (George Clooney and Julia Roberts in a romcom that was fun in an old fashioned kind of way) and The Lost City (with Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum, which was more a comedy drama adventure movie than a real romcom to begin with).
I mean, I get why young people are flocking in droves to Anyone But You. Both Sydney Sweeney (The White Lotus, Euphoria, Reality) and Glen Powell (Top Gun: Maverick, Devotion) are very, very attractive actors and the story mostly takes place in Australia over a long weekend during the kind of swimming pool summer that doesn’t require anyone to be fully clothed all of the time.
But I’d say that Anyone But You is worth it for the story too. I have a soft spot for Shakespeare adaptations and this one is a take on Much Ado About Nothing - one of the bard’s funniest and most lighthearted plays - by way of My Best Friend’s Wedding, the classic nineties romcom starring Julia Roberts.
It’s about Ben (Powell) and Bea (Sweeney) who have an amazing first date, but quickly sour on each other’s company due to a couple of communication errors.
However, when girlfriends Halle (Hadley Robinson) and Claudia (Alexandra Shipp) decide get married, they are both invited to the wedding, due to being in the same inner circle.
Even though its pretty clear to everyone that Ben and Bea are made for each other, they are still hating on each other.
Which leads Halle, Claudia, Ben’s best friend Pete (Gata) and some of the other wedding guests to devise a very Shakesperian plan to make them fall back in love with each other.
When Ben and Bea see through this scheme, they decide to play along as a pretend couple, not because they suddenly like each other again, but also as a way to get Ben’s remorseful first love Margaret (Charlee Fraser) and Bea’s unhappy ex-boyfriend Jonathan (Darren Barney) of their respective backs.
In doing so Ben and Bea get to spend more time together, and, well, it’s a romantic comedy, so anyone can do the math.
Powell and Sweeney are both great in their roles, while director Will Gluck (Easy A) directs with a good sense for comic timing, working from a story by Ilana Wolpert that hits all the right notes.
Before I saw it, I was a little surprised that this movie was doing so well in theaters, but now I understand. The lead characters start out as antagonists, which may have made both them and the movie come across as unsympathetic.
But as the ice starts to melt, and they show us their true colors you start to warm up to them. And in the end Anyone But You is the kind of feel good film that keeps its target audience coming back for more!
Note: Anyone But You is in cinemas in most countries right now.