Here we are, deep in the season of love: Valentine’s Day is nigh, and, as they do every year, movies reflect the emotion of the month with rose-tinted, heart-filled, tearful love stories popping up in the box office. Every year, there has to be at least one obvious choice to cause couples to sob into each other’s shoulders as they hold each other while silently dry-humping as they drift off to sleep amidst piles of hardly mediocre-tasting heart-shaped chocolates. And then Christian Ditter (Love, Rosie, The Crocodiles) crashes onto the scene with his punchy, anti-Valentine’s How to Be Single, a seemingly anti-love story, set in the heart of New York City, chronicling relationships/dating in the age of the hook-up, the young professional, the lost millennial.
We have Alice Kenley (Dakota Johnson), a young woman who apparently has always been in a relationship and doesn't know how to be alone, and consequently, doesn't know who she is, either. Alice moves to New York City after graduating from college and dumping/going on a “break” with her longtime college boyfriend Josh (Nicholas Braun), simply because she wants to “know how it feels to be alone.” When she gets there, she befriends her coworker Robin (Rebel Wilson), a wild party girl who decides to indoctrinate Alice into the New York bar scene and teach her how to be properly single (which mainly involves getting really drunk and sleeping with lots of guys). And so Alice’s journey begins…
Oh yeah, and then there’s Tom (Anders Holm), who owns a bar, is Robin’s friend, and explains classic guy douchebaggery to Alice (and sleeps with her a couple of times). And Lucy (Allison Brie), a serial online-dater who is obsessed with finding “the one”; she lives right above Tom’s bar. And Ken (Jake Lacy), and her sister Meg (Leslie Mann), and…
Actually, the abundance of parallel storylines proved to be one of the film’s weak points. The story was based on a book of the same title by Liz Tucillo (He’s Just Not That Into You), a format that can handle several interweaving, interrelated, and marginally related storylines; however, regardless of how pared down the screenplay was from the written text, the film took on too much that left the filmic story feeling quite scattered at times. For example, I don't understand the purpose of the David Stone (Damon Wayans, Jr.) character. Was he included to add another name to Alice’s list? Ok. But still, Ditter spent a lot of time on the character for an emotional moment that really didn't have much to do with the overall focus in the end. My main question: why do we (the audience) care? I care about my main character. Ditter also focused heavily on Meg’s and Tom's storylines, which still made sense in a way. However, it all added up to be a little too much; at least one storyline – I would argue the David one – should have been saved for another movie, another day.
Despite the anti-relationship-ish message, at the end of the day, just like its filmic counterparts dominating the season, How to Be Single is a rom-com, entirely enjoyable, solid, but not particularly great. It’s a little bit funny, a little bit sappy, but, overall, a rom-com done pretty well. It tries to capture the millennial love life, and does just that in part, but is a little bit too neat and too tidy to accurately portray that aspect of our culture. However, it is a palatable entrance into the modern day idea of love, arguing that one has to focus on herself or himself and self-love in order to find fulfillment in relationships and in the rest of his or her life.
Rating: C+/B-
We have Alice Kenley (Dakota Johnson), a young woman who apparently has always been in a relationship and doesn't know how to be alone, and consequently, doesn't know who she is, either. Alice moves to New York City after graduating from college and dumping/going on a “break” with her longtime college boyfriend Josh (Nicholas Braun), simply because she wants to “know how it feels to be alone.” When she gets there, she befriends her coworker Robin (Rebel Wilson), a wild party girl who decides to indoctrinate Alice into the New York bar scene and teach her how to be properly single (which mainly involves getting really drunk and sleeping with lots of guys). And so Alice’s journey begins…
Oh yeah, and then there’s Tom (Anders Holm), who owns a bar, is Robin’s friend, and explains classic guy douchebaggery to Alice (and sleeps with her a couple of times). And Lucy (Allison Brie), a serial online-dater who is obsessed with finding “the one”; she lives right above Tom’s bar. And Ken (Jake Lacy), and her sister Meg (Leslie Mann), and…
Actually, the abundance of parallel storylines proved to be one of the film’s weak points. The story was based on a book of the same title by Liz Tucillo (He’s Just Not That Into You), a format that can handle several interweaving, interrelated, and marginally related storylines; however, regardless of how pared down the screenplay was from the written text, the film took on too much that left the filmic story feeling quite scattered at times. For example, I don't understand the purpose of the David Stone (Damon Wayans, Jr.) character. Was he included to add another name to Alice’s list? Ok. But still, Ditter spent a lot of time on the character for an emotional moment that really didn't have much to do with the overall focus in the end. My main question: why do we (the audience) care? I care about my main character. Ditter also focused heavily on Meg’s and Tom's storylines, which still made sense in a way. However, it all added up to be a little too much; at least one storyline – I would argue the David one – should have been saved for another movie, another day.
Despite the anti-relationship-ish message, at the end of the day, just like its filmic counterparts dominating the season, How to Be Single is a rom-com, entirely enjoyable, solid, but not particularly great. It’s a little bit funny, a little bit sappy, but, overall, a rom-com done pretty well. It tries to capture the millennial love life, and does just that in part, but is a little bit too neat and too tidy to accurately portray that aspect of our culture. However, it is a palatable entrance into the modern day idea of love, arguing that one has to focus on herself or himself and self-love in order to find fulfillment in relationships and in the rest of his or her life.
Rating: C+/B-
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