”
How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days
”
is another tried-and-true Hollywood formula chick flick
– which is to say it’s terrible.
A cliche-ridden, unfunny, mean-spirited, feel-good romantic
comedy, this film is seriously flawed in all areas. There are
virtually no laughs in this ultimate stinker, a film that actually
works against the grain of love, the emotion it’s supposedly
affirming.
“How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days” is another tried-and-true Hollywood formula chick flick – which is to say it’s terrible.
A cliche-ridden, unfunny, mean-spirited, feel-good romantic comedy, this film is seriously flawed in all areas. There are virtually no laughs in this ultimate stinker, a film that actually works against the grain of love, the emotion it’s supposedly affirming.
There’s a scene in the film that illustrates these points when Ben (Matthew McConaughey) and Andie (Kate Hudson) pretend to be in love with each other, all to try and forward their careers. So, they play a card game called “Bullsh**,” which encourages the players to shout out the expletive when they feel like a player is caught in a lie. The humor of this moment is supposed to come from the idea that Ben and Andie are starting to have real feelings for each other, so when they call out the word, we know they’re actually lying because they’re in love, which is supposed to produce laughs. I know it makes no sense, but that’s how this unfunny, less-than-romantic movie plays.
The terrible premise makes for an unpleasant film, and the main characters are hard to relate to in any way; they seem to be from the world of bad behavior and mean spiritedness.
Andie Anderson, after graduating from Columbia, gets a writing gig as a columnist for the New York City magazine “Composure,” which is becoming one of the most popular women’s magazines in the country. The column she writes is a “how to” piece, nothing special for a career woman who prefers writing about like politics, feminism and politics. But her editor likes gossip, so that’s what Andie writes about.
When one of her co-workers (Kathryn Hahn) gets dumped by her boyfriend and is left with a broken heart, Andie decides her next column will be titled “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.”
Instead of making the column up, she turns it into a game by trying to find a guy she can pretend to be in love with, all so she can dump him 10 days later. All of this will be magically transformed into a column which should help women all over the country get back at the guys who have left them. If Andie can pull it off, her editor promises her more freedom in choosing story ideas.
Ego-driven advertising executive Ben is trying to persuade his boss (Robert Klein) to give him a new, high-end account. The account, which had been promised to a couple greedy co-workers, will be given to Ben on one condition: He must agree to a wierd bet to make an unknown woman fall in love with him before the next big executive convention, which, coincidentally, is in 10 days.
Ben and Andie meet and start to date, with both sides keeping their secret from the other, predictably. We are forced to follow them through their romantic escapades as they lie and cheat each other, all while supposedly really falling in love.
“How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days” is another bad rendering of the classic boy-meets-girl theme, a genre which will never die.
HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS. Directed by Donald Petrie. Written by Kristin Buckley, Brian Regan and Burr Steers. With Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey and Katherine Hahn. Rated PG-13 (mature themes and language), 116 minutes. Now playing at Bay Area theaters.
