Anyone But You tries so hard to be that heartwarming, familiar, spicy rom com but instead, I fear it makes a bit of a mockery of the genre…
I’m really trying not to be harsh in this Anyone But You analysis, but my fingers are brimming with ~unwritten~ opinions. From the shallow characters to the mind-bogglingly bad plot scenarios, we’ve got a lot to talk about with this film.
When a meet-cute ends in a misunderstanding, Bea and Ben harbor resentment for each other that they’re forced to confront when they both find themselves at the same Australian destination wedding.
Anyone But You Analysis
Hot & Blonde
The main leads of Anyone But You are the quintessential, conventionally attractive, universally beloved, standard American hot blondes.
With Sydney Sweeney and Glenn Powell in the lead roles, movie makers can at least guarantee that if the story they tell is not captivating, at least the eye candy they hire will bring enough attention and eyes to the film.
A very simple yet effective strategy.
Although Anyone But You succeeded in giving the audience something pretty to behold, it failed to support the beauty with a little bit of substance.
The film made some successful attempts at rounding out Powell’s character, Ben, and giving him some relatable quirks and challenges, however, we didn’t get much more depth to him than that.
I can also recognize the attempt at depth by introducing how he lost his mother and how that’s a sensitive subject for him, but we don’t really dive much into how that grief has shaped him into who he is.
Sweeney’s character, Bea, is a little more cryptic. We know that she’s a law school dropout who’s still figuring out life and afraid of disappointing her family, but beyond that… there’s not much more than meets the eye with her.
We stay on very surface-level terms with these characters, and they fail to become much more than hot and blonde.
Token Minorities
A disappointing trend I’ve noticed in the classic rom-com is the presence of the black sidekick (aka the main character’s best friend). We can see this in classics like “A Walk to Remember” “10 Things I Hate About You”, “She’s All That,” and even “Captain America: Civil War” just to name a few.
Black people are too often subject to the role of living a one-dimensional life where their only goal and focus is to support their white counterparts.
In Anyone But You, this role is allocated to Pete, played by GaTa. GaTa also played the black sidekick in the series, “Dave.”
We don’t see or know anything about Pete’s life outside of the fact that he has a sister who’s getting married and he has a dog named Klonopin (pretty much, the sidekick’s sidekick).
Pete was a comedic relief and I believe that fleshing out his life and character a little more could have added more layers, depth, humor and intricacy to Anyone But You.
Additionally, Pete and Ben’s personalities don’t seem complementary at all.
Ben is giving frat f-boy, cryptocurrency bro, and totally guilty of participating in hate crimes in his past.
While Pete is giving chill, laid back, too liberal for the constraints of a frat, a social justice and equality advocate.
And look, unlikely friendships are totally plausible, however, even to see Ben and Pete interact, there is no friendship chemistry there.
In the FX series, Dave, GaTa plays the friend of Dave and they have natural friendship chemistry that makes sense. They operate on a similar frequency.
On the other hand, in Anyone But You, Ben and Pete might as well be speaking different languages.
The whole time I was wondering, how did these guys meet? What drew them together as friends?
But wait, it doesn’t end there.
Pete’s sister is also a part of the friend group, cause we may as well add a token black female to the mix, but even more than that, his sister is a lesbian and she’s getting married to Bea’s sister.
So we have a few extra attempts of diversity in the film to balance out the strong white and blonde characteristics that we have front and center.
It does however feel more like fulfilling some quota rather than truly including diverse perspectives and experiences into the film.
The few instances of diversity should have roles and lives beyond supporting the dominant, conventional group. I think that Anyone But You could have benefited a more diverse array of input so that minority roles are not reduced to the same old boxes.
Rounding out all of the characters, highlighting their unique characteristics, and ensuring that they actually have chemistry with one another would enhance this film tremendously.
Using Exes as Props
Ben and Bea (which btw, the alliteration of their names somehow comes off as cheesy and not cute) both have exes whose presence during the pre-wedding celebrations is supposed to be an obstacle for their relationship.
However, the chemistry that Bea and Ben have with their exes is clearly not very strong. There’s no real fear that the exes are going to stop the inevitability of them being together.
The exes are harmless props to Anyone But You‘s story, not obstacles.
They give the illusion of being an obstacle but they don’t present any real challenges to the story, especially Bea’s ex.
Ben’s ex got a little more grease in her elbow, but Bea’s ex, he may as well have never been a part of the movie to begin with.
Unrealistic Situations
Humor is subjective.
I think we can all agree on that.
There were some attempts at situational humor in Anyone But You that fell flat and then some attempts at seriousness that made me laugh in disbelief.
Now, the whole conflict of this story comes from a 10-second conversation that Bea overhears going on between Ben and Pete.
After spending the whole night together laughing, talking, making grilled cheese, and getting to know each other, Ben is hurt that Bea left in the morning without even saying goodbye.
So when Pete asks Ben about his night with Bea, instead of saying something regular like, “Ehh, it was fun but it doesn’t matter. I’ll probably never see her again anyways.”
He goes full left field and calls her a nothing and a disaster…
Like, what?!
When I tell you I busted out laughing out of disbelief. I knew he was going to say something that Bea would be hurt by, but this – come on – this is too extreme for the situation.
And this ridiculous, outlandish, 5 second moment is the conflict that the whole 1 hour and 40 minute plot of Anyone But You rested upon?!
Now, that’s one hilarious joke.
What’s not a hilarious joke is having Bea reach over to the window seat of a plane to not just quickly snatch Ben’s cookie while he was asleep, but to rather lean over and take a bite of his cookie while hovering over his sleeping body…
Yes, that’s smart, that’s safe.
But, wait, it gets better.
Her clothes get stuck in the airplane armrests and now she has to position her whole body to straddle Ben while he’s fast asleep. She’s so helplessly stuck in the armrests that she has to take off her sweatshirt and change her positioning. In fact, she’s practically sitting on Ben’s face, bouncing up and down repeatedly as she tries to yank her clothes free…
Seriously…
Like, what is this? Really?
Is Anyone But You a bad rom com or an average adult film?
It gets even worse when Ben and Bea go hiking with the bridal party and Ben frantically strips himself naked because Bea finds a large spider in his underwear while trying to “subtly” display some butt-touching PDA.
Like – touching a butt is not really a science (ask Nemo), why were they in each other’s booty cracks?
So many questions that really shouldn’t need to be asked…
Much Ado About Nothing
Reading about how the film, Anyone But You, is loosely based on the Shakespeare story, Much Ado About Nothing, definitely gives this movie a little bit more context.
There were many subtle references to the play through visuals and script.
The overall driver of the plot, the conflict of creating animosity through misspoken words and misunderstanding, as well as the bridal party working to rekindle Ben and Bea’s relationship through manipulation and eavesdropping tactics, translates literally rather than poetically into Anyone But You.
Knowing the origins of the story does create a level of understanding for the film and its choices, however, I do believe that adapting a story still gives the screenwriter the responsibility of enhancing that story since they’ve already been given a template.
Half the work has already been done for you.
The characters have been created, the plot is set, the setting is established – whatever changes you make to the original story should enhance what has already been given, not cheapen it into a forgettable knock-off rendition.
