Brook Rushton/Sony Pictures
Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney star in Anyone But You.
CNN –
“Anyone But You” falls into a subgenre of romantic comedies where the challenge isn't so much bringing the couple together as it is finding creative ways to keep them apart. This fun romp in the Australian sun (because hey, it's summer there) serves primarily as a showcase for Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell, who graciously meet the demands of the exercise, even if the script only occasionally follows.
Sweeney and Powell's Bea and Ben initially meet sweetly and spend an exhilarating night together before she runs away, leaving him confused and angry, and she soon overhears him dumping her to his buddy in an act of bravery.
Flash forward, and his girlfriend (“Tick, Tick… Boom!” star Alexandra Shipp) marries her sister (Hadley Robinson) at a wedding in Australia, forcing the two of them to spend time despite lingering animosity over their rather thin mix to spend together -high. Additionally, the wedding party also includes Ben's ex (Charlee Fraser), while Bea's meddling parents (Dermot Mulroney and Rachel Griffiths) desperately want her to break up with her old boyfriend (Darren Barnet), leading the two to form something of an uneasy alliance forces Try to keep all outside noise at bay.
Directed by Will Gluck (who has already made a foray into this genre with Friends With Benefits) – who shares the screenplay with Ilana Wolpert – none of this is particularly convincing, but it doesn't have to be. The chemistry between Sweeney and Powell works, they certainly make for an engaging billboard, and there are a few big laughs, the only big one involving a particularly ugly and obtrusive Australian spider.
Above all, “Anyone But You” presents a fascinating example of career management, with Sweeney – who has expressed her frustration at the amount of tabloid attention she generates, from discussions of nude scenes to her family's politics – searching for her role as “HBO” branched out into romantic comedy. It can be seen in Euphoria, The White Lotus and the replacement film Reality. Powell, for his part, shows a softer side after his straight-laced turns in “Hidden Figures,” “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Devotion.”
As a playful end credits sequence makes clear, this is the kind of film that essentially serves as counter-program to the holidays – with an R rating aimed at a slightly more mature audience – a perhaps outdated idea that's the kind of exercise gets to the point well.
At one point Ben is lovingly described as a “beautiful idiot,” which is basically what’s needed to make something like “Anyone But You” plausible, and as Bea later tells him, “We’re all in the seventh Great, when it comes down to it “on this stuff” – one of the film’s few memorable lines.
On the other hand, beautiful idiots need love too. You just have to believe that they need a little help to find it.
“Anyone But You” premieres in US theaters on December 22nd. It is rated R.