There’s something initially, strategically encouraging about the existence and positioning of Sony’s glossy romantic comedy Anyone But You. Unlike the overwhelming swath of recent films within the genre (allegedly resurrected yet for those paying attention, not so much) it isn’t aiming for the streaming scrapheap, instead getting a bullish big-screen release. Teased with semi-clad on-set pictures of the lead duo – Euphoria’s teary Sydney Sweeney and Top Gun: Maverick’s tanned Glen Powell – for almost a year now, did-they-or-didn’t-they rumours egged on, it feels like the most confidently and expensively pushed romcom for a long time.
An initial teaser might have proved a little muddled – too much sex, not enough appeal – and the subsequent Olivia Rodrigo-tracked trailer might have been a little broad – tacky enough to be swiftly, brutally parodied – but surely there must be something there, something to explain why a studio would ambitiously launch a film in a commercially questionable genre fronted by two untested upstarts? Surely?
Maybe it’s the result of our collective obsession with nostalgia, more obviously seen in the many reboots or legacy sequels that litter up big and small screens but also in the wider sense, a genre yanked back from the dead and styled as if it were from the time from which it came (this season’s wonderfully mid-00s coded slasher Thanksgiving being a recent example). Anyone But You might be set in the present but it looks and feels as if it were two decades prior and, given how pedestrian the presentation of most romantic comedies now is, there are base pleasures to be had from this level of high-end sleekness. But beyond the visual exercise, there’s regrettably nothing else to explain why this was deemed worthy of a push, shininess failing to distract from ultimately everything else we demand from the genre.
Both inspired and hampered by Much Ado About Nothing, the film has Sweeney’s unsure law student Bea share one night with Powell’s cocksure finance bro Ben (that’s as far as it goes for characterisation!) and for reasons too thin to ever believe, it results in them becoming sworn enemies. Months later they meet again, discovering that Bea’s sister and Ben’s childhood friend are together and the two travel to Australia for the wedding, limply bantering along the way (the film is consistently, maddeningly unfunny). Through reasons even thinner than before, they decide that pretending to be a couple is a smart plan and hilarity theoretically follows.
Like the film itself, the appeal of the central pair is rooted in aesthetics but historically, romcom leads have been closer to class clown and girl next door than jock and prom queen. Genre stalwarts like Meg Ryan, Billy Crystal, Hugh Grant, Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock were attractive but they were rarely in-your-face sexy and never as non-stop naked as these two, appeal rooted in likability over fuckability. Sweeney and Powell, glistening and toned in pre-release stills and the poster itself, have not been picked for their relatability. There are failed attempts – Sweeney eating a grilled cheese when it’s too hot (!), Powell listening to Natasha Bedingfield to calm his nerves (!) – and this isn’t a problem in itself – this genre is not loved for its gritty realness – but there has to be something deeper, something to make us care for the will or the won’t of the formula.
Director Will Gluck, who also matched Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis to disastrous effect in 2011’s unlikable Friends With Benefits, can’t turn his leads into more than swimwear models, centring a romcom around them is like watching a kid force two dolls to kiss. An uncomfortable Sweeney, who was so remarkable earlier this year in Reality, has an odd flatness here that hampers what should be zippy material and while Powell is more competent, it never rises above soap competent, a tense square jaw relied upon for dramatic effect. The pair never convincingly hate or even mildly dislike each other, there’s no bite there, it’s more like watching a happy couple playfully rag on each other for an audience and we’re never given enough of a reason as to why they wouldn’t be together from the outset. Some of the most interesting romantic comedies need characters that are full, when-you-think-about-it weirdos to work their magic – Only You, Addicted to Love, You’ve Got Mail, My Best Friend’s Wedding, While You Were Sleeping – but these two remain boringly normal, more the kind to refer to the other as “this weirdo” on Instagram than do anything genuinely strange.
The Shakespeare of it all might also be a nostalgic callback to films like Clueless, Get Over It and 10 Things I Hate About You but it proves to be one of many stumbling blocks for writer Ilana Wolpert, coercing an age-old farce into distractingly, annoyingly convoluted slapstick-heavy corners, quotes clumsily crowbarred in throughout as a reminder. Vague meta attempts to comment on just how convoluted it gets aren’t enough to fix the problem, serving more as a confession that maybe this wasn’t a good idea in the first place.
Anyone But You is out in the US on 22 December and in the UK and Australia on 26 December
