Director: Will Gluck
Writers: Ilana Wolpert and Will Gluck
Stars: Sydney Sweeney, Glen Powell, Alexandra Shipp
Synopsis: After an amazing first date, Bea and Ben’s fiery attraction turns ice-cold–until they find themselves unexpectedly reunited at a destination wedding in Australia. So they do what any two mature adults would do: pretend to be a couple.
The last great movie event of 2023 is here, and, no, it’s not Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. As comic book movies are suffering from a major identity crisis, the rom-com is back with full aplomb in Anyone but You, a modern retelling (of sorts) of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing that’s very much steeped in early-2000s sensibilities, where its male & female leads do something so outlandish (because they hate their guts) that they inevitably fall in love.
Case in point: Bea (Sydney Sweeney) and Ben (Glen Powell) pretend to be in love in an attempt not to ruin the marriage of Bea’s sister, Halle (Hadley Robinson), and Ben’s friend, Claudia (Alexandra Shipp). The two met a few months after Ben made a nice gesture to Bea, saving her from embarrassment, and immediately hit it off. But after Bea overheard Ben speak about her in an unflattering way to his friend Pete (GaTa), the two haven’t been on the best of terms.
After Claudia’s father (Bryan Brown) sets up a ruse to pair the two, Bea and Ben overhear their conversations and “pretend” to be in love, but here’s the catch: they’re in love. No matter if Ben attempts to rekindle with her ex-girlfriend Margaret (Charlee Fraser) or if Bea’s parents (Dermot Mulroney & Rachel Griffiths) attempt to set up Bea with her ex-fiancé (Darren Barnet), the two will soon realize that they’re meant for another, even if they can’t stand each other.
Of course, it’s written in the sky that they will end up together, no matter the faux-problems writer/director Will Gluck and co-scribe Ilana Wolpert throw at them. You’d be a fool to think this film will reinvent the wheel of rom-coms when they’re specifically engineered to draw a satisfying story with a happy ending, with an electric pair leading the movie and giving the energy needed to make it feel special.
Luckily, Gluck has found quite the pair with Sweeney and Powell, both terrific to watch on screen. The two have a natural chemistry in earlier scenes that make their disdain feel palatable, and when the two pretend to be in love, the results are hilarious. Powell is a highly facial actor, as evoked in films like Top Gun: Maverick and Devotion, and he continues his track record of conveying most of his charm through his face.
There’s a specific expression of pretend that had the entire audience in stitches, and no matter how corny they may be, this earnestness makes the entire thing pop with extreme jubilance. And when the two leads are paired on screen, the sparks fly. Sweeney impressed earlier this year through her portrayal of Reality Winner in Tina Satter’s Reality, in which she gave a terrific dramatic performance, but we’ve never seen her in a comedy until now. Lord knows that Madame Web certainly looks like a comedy, but Sweeney gives an impassioned – and fun – performance in Anyone But You that balances out Powell’s charm surprisingly well.
Gluck also knows when to dial the comedy up and down and when to make its character development more heartfelt. One key sequence involving the characters reenacting a scene from James Cameron’s Titanic is the perfect example. It starts out as highly funny and moves into more serious territory when the protagonists open themselves up for the first time…until it picks itself back up with the best use of Natasha Bedingfeld’s “Unwritten” in any motion picture ever? Sure, why not. (And that song hammers home the early 2000s vibes the film wants to give).
The supporting cast is also game to have fun, with Mulroney, GaTa, and Brown having the biggest ball of their lives with astutely self-aware and absurd performances that make the film feel like one fun trip to Australia. Nothing more, nothing less. All of the arcs are as conventional as they come, but there isn’t a single bad performance in this picture so it’s hard to be mad at it.
Perhaps the film wouldn’t have worked if Sweeney and Powell weren’t such a good pair. But as it stands, Anyone but You is a deeply fun and earnest romantic comedy with two terrific performances. It checks all the boxes needed for a successful rom-com to work and will likely become a crowd-pleaser as families go to the movies for the holidays . If there’s one film to watch on the big screen during the season, it’s definitely Anyone but You, especially with a rowdy crowd ready to bask in early 2000s aesthetics and screenplays. Ain’t nothing wrong with that at all.
