How To Be Single [M]

Alice has never really been alone her entire life; living with the folks, then in a dorm with a roommate, and then with her boyfriend Josh. So when she proposes that the two take a break from the relationship and spend some time apart, she thinks it will really allow them to get to know themselves and make the love stronger. But after getting a taste of single life with her party girl coworker, Robin, she’s quick to go back to Josh. Sadly, he’s found someone else. Now Alice is living the single life fast and hard: casual sex with a barman friend, partying with Robin, helping her single sister through her IVF pregnancy, and the occasional attempt to form a new relationship. But is she really ‘single’ when she doesn’t spend a moment alone? 

Boldly attempting to answer the question, ‘is there a right way to be single?’, this movie is another one of those narrative-interlinked chick-flicks that is all about reading between the lines of the social interactions between the sexes. I’m not going to say that it’s not entirely un-original, various parts of it are and they’re nice and refreshing, but it is a subgenre of romantic comedy that we have seen done over and over and whilst there isn’t anything wrong with how this movie looks or what it says, it’s a film that I was both mildly impressed and disappointed by. I’m sort of in that can-can’t dance mode that you do when you’re edging into cold water at the beach or pool. 

First, I am going to get the cons out of the way. For about two thirds of this film, I was annoyed by a number of things. Firstly, the story runs at three times the speed of sound. The writers tried to cram almost a whole year into whatever runtime the film had and, as a result, it’s really hard to solidly station ourselves within the world of the film and it’s also almost impossible to form attachments to the characters. Each of the female protagonists is some sort of crazy single lady who’s life we don’t envy or even relate to (aside from maybe Alice’s) and the men all really blend into one man-shaped mess of ‘drama’. Admittedly, there are nice moments where the story slows down just enough to deliver some lovely little message or hint of possible plot direction, but those are fast and far between. 

Secondly, the screenwriters relied too heavily on the story’s ‘anti-romance/single-romance’ message to set it apart from other chick-flicks. Whilst the twists in the various stories are good with some getting closure and others not, this is the only original thing about this movie and for that reason, all I saw was He’s Just Not That Into You with most of the protagonists happily accepting single-ism. The structure of the film, right down to the bookended voice-over narration is exactly like He’s Just Not Into You and I can’t help but think that with such original and refreshing narratives revolving around being single, they could have maybe written and directed it in a way that was equally as fresh and original. 

Lastly, the characters of the central female protagonists where a little clichéd and limited in terms of subgenre norms. We have Alice the sweet and innocent but kind of cool and loose girl who really has no clue what type of character she is; granted, she is the character that most girls will probably relate to and that personality travels well for the film. 

We then have the overly confident party girl who is crass and in-your-face and goes through no character development until the climax of the movie. Admittedly Rebel Wilson did the role really well and the character, at that crucial point of the drama, is the catalyst for the lead’s own realization and character development, but for the majority of the movie she’s just there to be outrageous and rude comic relief; the girl behaving badly, and you have to sit through the entire film to get the long-awaited pay off with her character. 

Then comes the older sister and workaholic who decides she wants to have a baby. No interest in a relationship except when one literally approaches her, her character and indeed her story just seemed to go in all manner of directions and there was a lot of depth in her character that needed more time or at least more screen attention to be explored and understood. As it stands, she’s a bit all over the shop. 

Finally, we have the cute but manic online dater who has her whole romantic life mapped out. The flimsiest and most underdeveloped character of the four, there is absolutely no pay off with this girl; we get given a Gigi-and-Alex teaser with her and the bartender who’s free wi-fi she uses, but that is it and it’s maddening and feels a bit like a jip. 

Regardless of everything that was wrong with the first two thirds of the film, the last part did conjure that gooey and warm feeling that comes with chick-flicks and rom-coms in particular. 

The Alice-Robin buddy comedy story takes a nice turn and works beautifully at that crucial moment of character development, drama, and reconciliation; this is where we get some pay off and ‘aw’ moments with Robin’s character, which I really appreciated. 

And there are some beautifully shot scenes that really hammer home that message of what it means to be single and make that moral of the film shine through…admittedly we have to wait until the final leg of the movie to get it, but it does come and it’s lovely; makes it worth it in the end. 

Starring Dakota Johnson, Rebel Wilson, Leslie Mann, Damon Wayans Jr., Anders Holm, Nicholas Braun, Jake Lacy, Jason Mantzoukas, and Alison Brie, How To Be Single is a warm and functioning chick-flick and ‘rom-com’, but it’s not as refreshing or special as I think it could have been. At the end of the day, this movie relied too heavily on the novelty of a chick-flick being about women relishing single life and didn’t explore the ways that it could have made it more. 

Filled with romance, drama, and comedy, I was still satisfied by the end of it; still got that warm and fuzzy feeling that comes with a good chick-flick, but the journey to the end was a little taxing.