'Anyone But You' review: Anything but this insipid rom-com
Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney in "Anyone But You." Credit: Netflix
PLOT After a botched date, a man and woman are thrown back together at a destination wedding.
CAST Glen Powell, Sydney Sweeney
RATED R (nudity, sexuality, language)
LENGTH 1:43
WHERE Area theaters
BOTTOM LINE Two beautiful stars, one exotic location and very little else.
If looks could kill, you'd be dead within the first 60 seconds of “Anyone But You.” There’s Bea, a willowy beauty played by Sidney Sweeney (HBO’s “The White Lotus”) and there’s Ben, a sculpted specimen played by Glen Powell (“Top Gun: Maverick”). They meet cute in a cafe, then go for a stroll. They laugh, flirt and talk about who knows what -- and with actors this gorgeous, who cares?
That’s fine for an opening montage where nobody needs to speak much, but then the work of telling a story begins. That means creating characters who feel like real people and putting them in believable situations, something this film barely tries and never manages to do. Directed by Will Gluck (“Friends with Benefits”) from a screenplay he wrote with Ilana Wolpert, “Anyone But You” might pass muster as a pleasant holiday-season diversion, but it’s also a reminder that even the most dazzling smiles and perfect bodies can’t sustain a two-hour movie.
To call Bea and Ben shallow would be an understatement; they have less depth than a Euclidean plane. Bea is a reluctant law student at Boston University with no other goals or even interests; Ben does something in finance. She tiptoes out on him in the morning, the start of a misunderstanding that leads these two hotties to turn ice cold to each other. Thanks to mutual connections, though, they’re forced to play nice while attending a big-ticket wedding in Australia. (The two brides are played by Alexandra Shipp and Hadley Robinson.)
Cue the contrived mishaps: Ben discovers a spider in his trunks and strips naked in front of a crowd, Bea falls off the side of a boat, they both grapple with a Roman candle that sets a bride’s hair on fire. One set of parents (Michelle Hurd and Bryan Brown) tries to push Ben and Bea together, while the other set (Rachel Griffiths and Dermot Mulroney) tries to pull them apart. Ben’s spaced-out friend Pete (GaTa) dispenses spaced-out wisdom. Nobody’s motivations are ever clear, but screenplays need complications and so the characters oblige.
It's always a bad sign when a movie’s best moments come during the closing credits gag reel. Then again, maybe I have the wrong attitude. I overheard one satisfied customer talking to a companion after the screening, and I’ll give her the last word: “It’s a romantic comedy,” she said. “It’s not supposed to be good.”
