Anyone But You: Another Much Ado About Nothing Rom-com

MOVIE INFO:

In the edgy comedy Anyone But You, Bea (Sydney Sweeney) and Ben (Glen Powell) look like the perfect couple, but after an amazing first date something happens that turns their fiery hot attraction ice cold — until they find themselves unexpectedly thrust together at a destination wedding in Australia. So they do what any two mature adults would do: pretend to be a couple.

REVIEW:

Columbia Pictures

Anyone But You, a loose updating of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing that replaces the wicked wit and repartee, with childish insults and characters with more boobs and abs. The boobs belong to internet wonder Sydney Sweeney who plays Bea, a brainy law student who doesn’t want to be a brainy law student. The abs belong to Glen Powell’s Ben, a wall street pro who sees himself as God’s gift to women. The slant rhyme of their names is the clue that these bickering two belong to each other. The blessing is that both are good looking, smart actors who are playing dumbed down characters as if they where in a classic screwball comedy. Sweeney and Powell have the lighting fast response time to deliver the not so sparkling banter and toxic personal insults with zing and sting. They make you believe that these opposite haters will develop the required opposite attraction.

Anyone But You has a decent meet cute. Bea is a coffee café customer in line who’s refused a restroom key by a snooty barista. Ben is the man who comes to her aid by pretending to be her husband. From then on, the two will fake it until they make it real. The hate comes when after their inevitable hookup, the painfully insecure Bea, sneaks away, making Ben think she has ghosted him. When she returns a few minutes later and overhears Ben trashing her to his best friend the stage is set for the two to get their hate on when they meet again at the Australian destination wedding of Bea’s sister to the sister of Ben’s best friend. When the families starts playing matchmaker to Bea and Ben, the two decide to pretend their in love in the interest of a no drama wedding taking place

The shenanigans that ensue have the horrendous duo getting entangled in en flagrant delit scenarios. The funniest has a hilltop clothes tossing tantrum on Ben’s part turn into a chance for brief foreskin exposure. A little gaze-porn is the new rom-com spice.

The insults, though in the screwball style, have a vivid hostile edge, that are intended to break through their barriers and allow for a sort of future naked honesty between them. This is a rom-com designed for the current marriage adverse, antipathy generation intent only on Tinder hookups. Its box office success proves Anyone But You directly hits their sweet spot. The new romcom motto: You probably have to love someone a lot to hate them this much.