Since Reality Sydney Sweeney has nothing left to prove. A standout performance that didn’t rely on her usual standout performers, it was sober and pitiless and one of the best films of 2023. And now? Anyone But You, the sort of thing you might have thought she’d have left behind, a boy meets girl, loses girl, etc romcom with the 90s in its rearview, with sexy jokes, some whoops-nudity, side characters who are funny and/or supportive confidants, plus parents who push too hard or are gross-out buffoons, all the trappings really.
It’s a strange Frankenstein creation welding together bits from two Australian directors. From PJ Hogan the vibe and drive of Muriel’s Wedding along with the snark of My Best Friend’s Wedding. From Baz Luhrman, the decision to sex up William Shakespeare, Romeo + Juliet style. Anyone But You is Much Ado About Nothing grumblingly pushed into the 21st century. Maybe it’s the “But. Shakespeare!” implorings of Sweeney’s agent that got her (and it) onto the screen.
So, the meet-cute, in a coffee shop where Sweeney’s Bea is dying for a pee and is saved from mortal embarrassment by the intervention of total stranger Ben (Shakespeare called them Beatrice and Benedict). They bond, and fall for each other until some minor misunderstanding pushes them apart, only for fate to push them back together when her sister and his best friend’s sister decide to get married and Bea and Ben are forced to spend time together at the celebration in Australia – this is Money Oz and the bash goes on for a few days.
So they do what romcom people tend to do in situations like this – they pretend they are an item. And, guess what, etc etc etc.
Romcoms are not noted for their originality and this is no exception. But… good-looking people, sunny locations, a few zingy lines, a rather good support cast (including Bryan Brown, Dermot Mulroney and Muriel’s Wedding‘s Rachel Griffiths for the oldsters, Gata, Charlee Fraser, Joe Davidson and Darren Barnet for the youth). Leaving Alexandra Shipp and Hadley Robinson fairly high and dry as the couple who are actually getting married.
I should mention Glen Powell, since he plays Ben, and is actually good at it, in a throwing-caution-to-the-winds and check-out-this-buffness kind of way, trading lines, smirks and risqué (90s risqué) situations with Sweeney as if the two had great chemistry, which in reality they don’t.
It’s an eager film, with eager acting, eager one-liners and an eager score, so eager that it comes across as a little unsure of itself. Director and co-writer Will Gluck did something similar in 2010 with Easy A, a vehicle for Emma Stone and a homage to Clueless, Heathers and the John Hughes movies of the 1980s (right down to Simple Minds on the soundtrack). It was also enjoyable but never quite smashed it.
Easy A was also a reworking of something classic, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Here, as said, it’s Shakespeare, and he keeps popping up in the cutest places – as a line on the spine of a book, a message on a sandy beach, sprayed onto a wall. Even, now and again, just momentarily, in the mouths of the actors.
It’s a bit of a gimmick and adds little, except to tell us that Gluck and co-writer Ilana Wolpert have read a book and that they might also have 10 Things I Hate About You (a version of The Taming of the Shrew) in mind, another tale of romance, fate and crossed wires.
If movies can be assigned to days of the weeks, Anyone But You is a Thursday – not quite the weekend but almost. Good but not great, in short.
Anyone But You – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2024