Director: Christian Ditter
Cast: Dakota Johnson, Rebel Wilson, Alison Brie, Leslie Mann, Nicholas Braun, Jason Mantzoukas, Anders Holm, Jake Lacy, Damon Wayans Jr., Nick Bateman, Lily Collins
Rating: 15
Running Time: 109 mins
Release Date: February 19th 2016
Who doesn’t love a good easy to watch, predictably cliche, rom-com that satisfy’s the inner mush within us all? With an ensemble including the continually funny Australian export Rebel Wilson, rising 50 SHADES OF GREY star Dakota Johnson, COMMUNITY and MAD MEN regular Alison Brie, and comedy queen Leslie Mann, HOW TO BE SINGLE presents itself as an ideal addition to our drivel collection.
The film mainly focuses on Alice (Dakota Johnson) who decides to branch out from her current relationship and become a first time single gal to discover her ambitions, New York, and most importantly, herself. Along the way she meets single-by-choice party animal Robin (Rebel Wilson) who makes it her mission to teach Alice, in essence, how to be single. Meg (Leslie Mann), Alice’s older single sister, spends her life delivering babies but has no interest in having one herself, and Lucy (Alison Brie) lives above a bar and steals wifi for a living to fuel her multiple dating profiles in order to find the perfect guy.
But HOW TO BE SINGLE manages to deceptively draw the audience into the false idea that we’re about to embark on the usual love story spiel, but quickly turns on its axis to present a relatively different point of view from four very different characters.
It can’t be helped though to point out its flaws.
I adore Rebel Wilson as much as anyone, but her character feels like an overlapping, perhaps older version of her character in PITCH PERFECT (the film that notably brought her to fame) who is intensely funny and ever so rude. I went into the film with an certain expectation of how her character was about to be presented, and I was bang on the money. It’s felt like an extended version of herself, which is of course wonderfully funny and she carries the majority of the humour on her back, but it does become predictable very quickly.
Queen of rom-com Leslie Mann’s character Meg is the supposedly wiser older sister who chose career over children (hold on — as if we’re still having to choose in this day and age… ugh…). Her character begins the film as a child hating obstetrician, and then sporadically decides to embark on getting a sperm donor to have a baby, a situation that is highly implausible and also a major misrepresentation of the struggles that many working women face when it comes to having children; these decisions aren’t made over night in reality, and while I can suspend my imagination to a certain degree, I just couldn’t get my head past such a rash decision, not the mention the viability of the entire situation.
Alison Brie’s storyline as Lucy is a funny and cute addition but perhaps unnecessary. It doesn’t particularly fit in with the rest of the film as a subplot, and the only factor that links her in is that is she lives above the bar owned by Tom (Anders Holm) who ‘gets it on’ occasionally with Alice (and Robin!).
I think my main problem with the film is that its presented to act as a sort of guide for women to LEARN something, whether it’s about being single or not, but it’s formation didn’t quite deliver that. Instead, it displayed four women’s single situations, and their various ways of solving it/dealing with it.
However, I did enjoyed the moments where we see the characters grow and thrive through their learning, and finally making choices for themselves. Though he loses out on the girl he likes, we see Tom beginning to open up to the possibility of a relationship by allowing himself to turn back on his water to the kitchen sink – yes it’s a small moment (and it’ll only make sense if you watch the film), but instead of showing an improbable situation in which he gets the girl and lives happily after, the film is showing a younger generation that it’s okay that things don’t always go your way, and instead change a small element in your life to allow more opportunities in the future. Rebel Wilson’s character Robin starts off in the film as the hardcore party animal and she, rightly so, ends the film exactly the same way which was extremely satisfying; it wouldn’t work if she ends the film by settling down, it just wouldn’t be believable. We also see Dakota Johnson’s Alice take herself away from the dating drama to fulfil her bucket list-esque journey to the Grand Canyon on her own (though let’s not discuss the fact that she trains for it by using a stair master at the gym…) which sets a lovely example of accomplishing things for yourself, a conclusion to her character that was genuinely needed. It is a welcome change to see the majority of the characters in a film not forced to unrealistically and dramatically change.
While it prizes itself on making fun of romance, it still follows the basic romantic cliches. Did I learn much about being single? Not particularly. Did I enjoy it? Absolutely. I think it’s a strong addition to the chick flick category that isn’t as predictable as you may initially think.
Verdict
