Rating: 3.0/5.0
Directed by: Christian Ditter
Starring: Dakota Johnson, Rebel Wilson, Alison Brie, Leslie Mann
Release Date: Feb. 12, 2016
Rated: R
“How to Be Single” opens with Rebel Wilson (as party girl Robin) clad in a suggestive dress with a downward pointing arrow, center stage in a dramatic opening that’s on par with the movie’s tone. With its obscene humor, well-timed jokes and relatable plot, “How to Be Single” captures audiences and gives an engaging take on what it means to be a single woman in today’s world, but, at times, falls back on tired romantic comedy plotlines.
The film follows Alice, a young woman who breaks up with her college boyfriend to discover who she is as an individual. Along the way, she encounters womanizing bartender Tom (Anders Holm), dates a widowed father (Damon Wayans Jr.), and pines after ex-boyfriend Josh (Nicholas Braun), who she comes to regret breaking up with. Despite Robin’s antics and her attempts to enjoy the single life, Alice realizes that she misses Josh, but that it’s too late. Meanwhile, Alice’s sister Meg (Leslie Mann) decides to become pregnant through in-vitro fertilization. Neurotic online-dater Lucy (Alison Brie) struggles to find the one while Tom the bartender realizes his feelings for Lucy too late. Ultimately, Alice decides to follow through on her long-talked about plans and embarks on a solo journey to the Grand Canyon on New Year’s, relishing truly being alone for the first time.
With its use of well-placed jokes and innuendo, “How to Be Single” engages its audience from the very first frame. Its entourage of single female characters, from crazy Robin to the soul-searching Alice to type-A Lucy, drive the plot forward, highlighting women with various approaches to life. Sometimes they feel like overblown caricatures, but at their core, the characters are based on something deeply relatable, reminding audiences of snippets of their own lives.
The film’s “Bridesmaids”-esque sense of humor is funny, doubtless, but at times tries too hard to be on par with current pop culture. At times, the jokes feel too obtuse and overblown, as with the character Robin. While viewers love the empowered, heavy drinking, extremely sexualized fat girl that Rebel Wilson so often plays, it’d be nice to see the character be more than just comic relief, a persona that the film does little to develop.
Plot-wise, the film too often relies on tired tropes taken from romantic comedy playbooks. While relatable in terms of the situations of the characters, the way things fall neatly into place and the semi-aligned plotlines come off like a predictable comedy. The various semi-related storylines play off in predictable ways, and their relations to each other seem overly constructed. However, the movie’s ending provides a refreshingly new end to the typical chick flick: an image of a more empowered, happily single modern woman. Ultimately, “How to Be Single” is what it sets out to be: a romantic comedy. It’s cheesy, layered with crude humor and predictable, but, after all, that’s why people will watch it.
