The rom-com has fallen on tough times of late. Except for the Hallmark Channel, studios seem to have shied away from the format that used to produce some of its biggest and most enduring hits. But with Anyone But You, it looks like they may be thinking about returning to form.
The movie opens with Bea, a young law school student, rushing into a coffee shop to ask to use the bathroom, only to learn that it’s for customers only and she’d have to wait in a very long line to buy something. But at the front of the line is Ben, who overhears her plight and spontaneously pretends to be her husband. He then asks her out, and they share a romantic walk around Boston before returning to his apartment, where they end up spending the night (but not, importantly, having sex). The next morning, she wakes first, panics, and tries to sneak out. He hears her leaving and is disappointed, and a bit later when his friend comes by, he bad-mouths her… not realizing that she has returned to apologize for leaving and is listening outside his door.
Fast forward six months and they run into each other again because it turns out that her sister is dating his friend’s sister. The two women are soon engaged and are going to have a destination wedding in Sydney, which will once again force Bea and Ben to interact. But on arriving in Sydney, Ben is confronted with an ex that he regrets having broken up with, while Bea’s overbearing parents have, unbeknownst to her, brought her ex-boyfriend, in the hopes that they will get back together. But at the same time, the two brides realize that their constant fighting is going to disrupt the wedding, and so they hatch a plan to get Bea and Ben together.
Bea realizes what’s going on and comes up with a plan of her own: she and Ben should pretend that they have made up and are dating. She recognizes that it’ll be a way to salvage the weekend, get her parents off her back, and maybe make Ben’s ex jealous enough to get back with him. Win-win-win? Well, of course not, but it wouldn’t be a rom-com if everything just worked out.
Early on, when Bea leaves Ben’s place for the first time, there’s what looks like a mural on the wall with a quote from Shakespeare. A bit later, there’s another of his lines seemingly randomly placed on a beach. That’s when I started to get a feeling that this rom-com might be a bit more than the trailers led on, and once Ben’s friend and his step-father badly playact a scene where they discuss how much Bea likes Ben so that he could “overhear,” I was convinced that, yes, this was in fact a retelling of Much Ado About Nothing, one of the first rom-coms in history. There are many, many other clues as well, from the main character’s names—I don’t recall exactly what they said Bea’s real name is, but Bea and Ben are obvious takes on Beatrice and Benedick—to the story being constructed around an upper-class wedding. (Everyone in the movie is, of course, very wealthy.) And if there was any doubt at all, the title of the play ends up prominently displayed near the end of the film.
Besides its classic roots, the movie also works thanks to the incredible casting, which includes Alexandra Shipp as one of the brides and Dermot Mulroney, Rachel Griffiths, and Bryan Brown as the parents. But, of course, any successful rom-com will really sink or swim based on the chemistry between the leads, and Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell have so much chemistry on screen that one might almost wonder if they are in a relationship offscreen as well. (No.) In addition to being two extremely attractive people, they truly shine in their scenes together.
I should mention that this movie has a well-deserved R rating, not only for language but for a considerable amount of nudity, both male and female, and multiple sex scenes. So, parents be warned.
Hollywood has been making some odd marketing decisions of late, and in my eyes hiding that Anyone But One is a modern retelling of a Shakespeare play rates right up there with hiding that Wonka, The Color Purple, and Mean Girls are musicals. Sweeney and Powell are surely enough to draw in younger audiences (the 20-somethings that were behind me as we exited the theater declared that it was “fire”), and even one trailer making the Much Ado connection would surely bring in an older crowd as well.
At this time of year, in the midst of awards season, most of the movies in the multiplex tend to be heavier affairs, but if you’re looking for something light and fun to see, I can highly recommend Anyone But You.
