Movie Review: Anyone But You

 Movie Number 2 of 2024

The Movie: Anyone But You

The Cinema: Hoyts Victoria Gardens

Stars: An unexpected 3.5

I saw this on a whim, mainly to get out of my flat on a hot afternoon. I wasn't expecting anything much - just a rather poor re-telling of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing with a backdrop of Sydney Harbour. Something light and fluffy. Something that was probably going to be eye-rollingly bad. 

I was surprised. This was a lot better than I thought it would be. 

Another thing that surprised me. As this is the first week out, the theatre was nearly full, and yes, it was a 6.15 on a Saturday, but still. 

So, the story is what it is. Totally too perfect Ben (Glen Powell, all milk-fed Texan, chiseled ab perfection) bumps into Bea, a half-together baby lawyer with a pneumatic chest and sad eyes. They connect in a big way, spend a wonderful, platonic night together, after which, she skips out, which was her normal way of doing things. Getting the guilts, and realising she might have been the real deal, goes back, only to find him playing up to his friend Pete (GaTa) obvious to the audience that he was a bit of a smitten kitten. Bea hears this and decides to completely diss him.

Things heat up when the pair are invited to the destination wedding of Bea's sister, Halle (Hadley Robinson) to Pete's sister, and Ben's best mate, Claudia (Alexandra Shipp) And hilarity ensues. 

As with most romcoms, there's the meddling parents, played by Dermott Mulroney and Rachel Griffiths on one side and Bryan Brown and Michelle Hurd. There's the other love interest who comes back. There are the troubles here and there, and some strange situations. It's all in there. As the movie goes on, Ben and Bea decide to play at being a couple to keep the meddling parents at bay. 

And it's a pity that the script is so shite, as Sweeney and Powell have a lot of chemistry - and it is this, and the Sydney overlay which makes this palatable. A lot of the movie is really quite predictable, and silly. 

I'm also going to call this early. I think Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell, the protagonists of this film, may end up being the new Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. There might just be something there, and they deserve better than this crappy script. Wait for streaming for this one, when you're in need of something pretty to look at and fun on a wet Friday night. It's not worth paying the money to see it, but don't be surprised if the two main actors are matched again in something better. 

Oh, on one good point, the inclusion of this song as a running joke in the film helped make it work for me. 

Today's song: