Underwhelming comedy . . . or drama?
Directed by: Christian Ditter
Written by: Abby Kohn, Marc Silverstein, Dana Fox
Cast: Dakota Johnson, Rebel Wilson, Leslie Mann
I wasn’t really sure that I wanted to see How to Be Single. I haven’t been single in quite a while, so I didn’t really have a need to know how to be single. Plus it has the actress from Fifty Shades of Grey, which was not a great film. But it does have Rebel Wilson, and I like her. I decided what the heck; it will probably be funny, right? Well some parts were funny. Some parts were a little too dramatic for a comedy. And then some parts made me have questions.
Alice (Johnson) and Josh (Nicholas Braun) dated during their college years. After graduation, Alice wanted to take a break (a la Ross and Rachel) and learn to live her life on her own. Josh is absolutely against this, but he goes along with Alice’s plan. Alice moves to New York City and works as a paralegal at a law firm, where she meets Robin (Wilson). The girls become fast friends, as Robin takes Alice under her wing to teach her how to live the single life. Robin is a swinging single lady, into partying all the time and just being overall outrageous.
Alice’s sister Meg (Mann) is a single OB/GYN who has no desire to start a family, until one day after interacting with a cute baby, she changes her mind. She decides to do in vitro fertilization and soon is pregnant. While at Alice’s law firm’s Christmas party, she meets Ken (Jake Lacy), a much younger man who is a receptionist for the firm. They hit it off immediately, but she is hesitant to tell him she is pregnant. One question – how can she keep something like that from him? Wouldn’t he notice her body is changing?
Meanwhile, Lucy (Alison Brie) has just moved into an apartment above a bar. Lucy is hard at work, looking for true love on various dating sites. She spends a lot of time in the bar, using their Wi-Fi and having conversations with Tom (Anders Holm), the bartender. Tom is a quintessential ladies man, but he soon finds he has feelings for Lucy. However, Lucy does not see Tom that way.
After having a taste of the single life, Alice decides she wants to get back with Josh. Unfortunately, Josh has moved on, big time. He has a new girlfriend, but he still keeps Alice in his life. He invites her to a holiday party and attends Alice’s birthday party and they run into each other from time to time. Which leads me to another question – do exes behave like that? It seems if you’ve moved on, you don’t keep stringing your former girlfriend along, right?
Soon Alice begins dating a new guy, David (Damon Wayans Jr.). David had the most dramatic story-line of all, as he is a single dad to an adorable little girl named Phoebe (Zani Jones Mbayise). When Alice and Phoebe meet they become good friends, but David has a problem with that, as Alice is not Phoebe’s mother. They break up soon after that. Now truly single, Alice goes about finding her way through life solo. I can appreciate that, as you do need to learn to love yourself before you can love others.
I wasn’t sure if this film was trying to be like Sex & the City, with four gal pals running around New York City in various stages of life. Too bad Lucy had no interaction with the other three girls. It seemed like her whole story-line could have been taken out and made into a completely different movie, or just left out altogether, which would have also cut down the 1 hour and 50 minute running time of this film. I couldn’t really relate to any of the characters, as I’m not single nor am I pregnant by a sperm donor. Overall it was ok but not great. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it either.
