How To Be Single Movie Review
Neither film is worth shelling out $9 for, but I guess if you don’t have a date on the most romantic weekend of the year, heading to the theater beats the alternative of sitting at home alone in your sweats devouring a pint of ice cream. I walked in with no real expectations and found myself laughing quite a bit.
Dakota Johnson plays Alice, a paralegal and recent college graduate who has decided she needs a break from her current romantic relationship as she moves to New York City and starts a new job. Alice and Josh seem deeply in love and destined to be with one another forever.
The How to Be Single star certainly looked stylish hitting the streets wearing a white faux leather and lace moto jacket paired with a sleek black jacquard skater dress from her collection. She lists all the things that she has never done or accomplished and has adamantly decided she can’t do that with a plus-one. Now, Mann comes forward to explain why that occurred, just as Johnson herself talks about the worst aspects of being a single woman, and they’re not the reasons you might think. Lacking a good Wi-Fi connection in her apartment, she hangs out at the bar located at the bottom of her building where she begins attracting the attention of Tom, who begins rethinking his commitment-phobic ways.
Since Mann, who is married to comedy legend Judd Apatow, is the mother to two girls, I asked if she used her motherly skills to make that very special connection with that child in the film. “My mom is of the mindset that you can have multiple marriages and it’s fine”, she smiles endearingly, “but she raised me to always work for myself and do life for myself and not for anyone else, especially for a man, because that will ultimately lead to disappointment in some regard”.
There’s a right way to be single, a wrong way to be single, and then…there’s Alice.
The entire cast is visibly having a great time.
Wilson plays Robin, the loudmouth colleague of Dakota Johnson’s inexperienced and rather mousy Alice. There’s a delicate balance between goofy sincerity and raunchy comedy that the film ably pulls off. When the film reveals what’s been its most important relationship all along, it makes ideal sense.
Certainly, the controversial Fifty Shades of Grey portrayal of Anastasia Steele is a game changer. Alison Brie (“Community”, “Mad Men”) is Lucy, another new arrival scoping out roomfuls of men and trying to muster the courage to say “Hey, there”.
It will probably not surprise you to learn that this film, generically directed by Christian Ditter (“Love, Rosie”), was written by the people behind 2009’s “He’s Just Not That Into You”. Perhaps most troubling, the main character walks around New York City without shoes on. There is a character revelation tacked on at the end surrounding Wilson’s character that does nothing but add a few extra minutes onto the film.