How to Be Single

HOW TO BE SINGLE (Christian Ditter, 2016)

Alice (Dakota Johnson) is in a happy relationship with longtime college boyfriend Josh (Nicholas Braun), but she wants to take a break because she doesn’t feel she knows who she is outside of a couple. In HOW TO BE SINGLE she begins this presumably temporary split from Josh while working as a paralegal in New York City. At the office she meets and befriends Robin (Rebel Wilson), a hard-partying, commitment-resistant dynamo who is eager to teach her new friends in the ways of the modern single woman. Robin encourages Alice to get christened into the world of carefree hook-ups with Tom (Anders Holm), a bar owner with a pathological compulsion for ensuring that no woman will linger at his apartment the morning after. It doesn’t take long for Alice to determine that she and Josh were right for each other, but when she’s ready to end this experiment, she discovers he’s found another girlfriend during their time off.

Alice’s older sister Meg (Leslie Mann) is unattached and appears content with focusing on being an obstetrician than having a family of her own. Whether it’s her biological clock or daily interaction with infants, she eventually realizes she wants a baby of her own and turns to in vitro fertilization. Tom has a thing for Lucy (Alison Brie), who is friendly with him but appears to see him for what he is. Lucy wants someone serious about getting married and is using analytics on dating sites to locate the perfect man.

HOW TO BE SINGLE plays as a less bawdy version of SEX AND THE CITY when it was a television show, although the main characters aren’t nearly as tight socially as those on the HBO series. Alice and Robin are supposedly fast friends--and best ones too--yet Robin vanishes for long stretches, returning only when the film needs a jolt of energy. The episodic nature carves HOW TO BE SINGLE into segments that withhold it from establishing a comedic rhythm or narrative flow.

What Alice elects to do is the solo version of couples on THE AMAZING RACE that say they want to put themselves through a high stress situation to test their relationships’ strength. At one point someone on screen wisely acknowledges that maybe this isn’t the smartest thing to try. Screenwriters Abby Kohn, Marc Silverstein, and Dana Fox also have a curious idea of what Alice’s journey of self-discovery should be. She continues to be defined through the relationships she has, even if they’re fleeting, which directly contradicts what the character states that she wants to learn at the film’s start. There’s no personal growth for Alice other than some lip service toward the end. Otherwise the insistent message is that when she finds the right guy, she needs to lock him down as soon as possible. The film upholds the importance of female bonds yet often has the gals pushing each other into the arms of some guy lest they contemplate the horror of being alone for one second.

HOW TO BE SINGLE comes from the production company Flower Films, which Drew Barrymore co-founded. Alice is the type of character Barrymore would have been playing about fifteen years ago. Johnson is funny when showing how bad or out of practice Alice is at flirting, but she can seem too innocent, inexperienced, or passive. The film is divided among too many characters as it is, so it would have been better to invest Alice with the certainty that Brie’s Lucy displays. Wilson’s devil-may-care attitude boosts the laughs. Mann brings some pathos to Meg’s longing for a child and gets a physical comedy highlight when crawling out of a cab’s window while on the verge of giving birth.

HOW TO BE SINGLE gets tripped up by the fantasy it wishes to indulge about independence and the struggle for interdependence rather than codependence. It could stand to get a do-over, which is something the lead character would probably appreciate too.

Grade: C+

The Other Woman

THE OTHER WOMAN (Nick Cassavetes, 2014)

New York City lawyer Carly Whitten (Cameron Diaz) has only been seeing Mark King (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) for eight weeks in THE OTHER WOMAN, but her behavior suggests she believes he may be the one with whom she’ll settle down. She’s exclusively dating Mark and even invites him to meet her dad Frank (Don Johnson). To her the first sign of trouble in their relationship comes when he calls off the dinner because he has to attend to a plumbing emergency at his Connecticut home. Nevertheless, Carly decides to make the best of the situation by putting on a sexy plumber’s outfit and surprising him at his place. She’s the recipient of the unexpected, though, when his wife Kate (Leslie Mann) answers the door.

Being confronted with news of her husband’s philandering shatters Kate. With no support system around her, she tracks down Carly for a shoulder to cry on. Carly is done with Mark because she refuses to go out with married men, but she’s not particularly sympathetic to Kate. Through their anger at Mark they gradually bond until Kate believes Carly may still have something on the side with him. To their shock, they discover he’s cheating on both of them with the nubile Amber (Kate Upton). Carly and Kate inform Amber of Mark’s ways and plot together to get their revenge on him.

THE OTHER WOMAN puts on a brave face as if it’s a gleeful women’s revenge comedy, but for much of its running time the characters’ pain overwhelms the feeble humor. Rather than feeling energized as they team up in sisterly power, Kate and Carly are forced to examine their lots in life. Kate is terrified at the idea that she has to choose between staying in a broken marriage or starting over without a career, family, or friends. She gave up her work for Mark, delayed having kids at his insistence, and has a social circle tied to his pals. Carly despairs at remaining in the dating world as the prospects become fewer and competition gets stiffer from younger women. Carly’s five-time divorced father habitually moves on to younger partners, so she’s keenly aware of what awaits her if she doesn’t snag a man soon.

In theory THE OTHER WOMAN views these existential conflicts from the female perspective. While it has the hallmarks of a Nancy Meyers film--complicated women’s love lives, lavish living spaces, and pop standards on the soundtrack--the sensibility behind THE OTHER WOMAN seems to belong more to a man. (The film is written by Melissa Stack and directed by Nick Cassavetes. The problems could be endemic to the screenplay, although how Cassavetes has scenes play suggests significant blame should be assigned to him.) The easy, unlikely friendship among Kate, Carly, and Amber reads as a misguided belief in divine sisterhood. The wronged women are often made to look more ridiculous than the man committing serial infidelity. All three continue to be drawn to and want to compete for Mark despite staggering evidence of his shortcomings. Mark is such a non-presence in the film that it hardly feels like a victory for the ladies when he is served his comeuppance. It’s also impossible to ignore that the camera adopts the leering male gaze when Amber is on screen in bikinis or low-cut clothing.

Diaz and Mann are fine comedic performers who also locate the anguish in their roles despite THE OTHER WOMAN not being particularly concerned with the deeper emotional aspect. Watching them flail about with material that doesn’t respect them goes to show how lousy the roles for women often are in Hollywood, even in a project targeted at the female audience. While women get more screen time here than they do as props for heroes in other films, they’re made to act like hens chasing after the rooster. It’s hardly a fair trade-off.

Grade: D+

This is 40

THIS IS 40 (Judd Apatow, 2012)

A milestone birthday is causing tension for married couple Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann) in THIS IS 40.  With their pivotal birthdays occurring in the same week, it’s natural that they use the occasion of turning 40 to assess their lives and decide what needs work.  They try to be calm and sensible, making standard promises to eat more healthfully and take more time for each other, but Pete and Debbie can’t shake the existential panic creeping up on them.  

It doesn’t help that their businesses are in crisis to varying degrees.  Pete’s record label is bleeding money trying to sell new albums from music industry legends whose audiences have dwindled since their glory days.  Debbie’s boutique is managing to do OK but can’t afford to be short the thousands of dollars that an employee may be stealing.  

Debbie responds to it all by refusing to admit to her age, preferring to claim to be turning 38 or younger.  She sneaks cigarettes and withholds information that she doesn’t think Pete wants to hear.  Pete doesn’t seem as hung up on how many birthdays he’s had. Rather, he secretly rebels against the idea that a number means he should cut down or eliminate cupcakes and French fries from his diet.  He also doesn’t tell Debbie that they might need to sell their house and lies to her about the loans he continues to give his dad Larry (Albert Brooks).

At some time or another every adult has surely taken pause at the thought of having turned into one’s parents at least a little, but Pete and Debbie worry independently about the prospect of the other becoming like their father.  The concern is especially acute for Debbie.  She sees Pete’s dad unable to support himself and having a much younger wife and kids.  Never mind that her own father Oliver (John Lithgow) abandoned her as a child, goes years without seeing her, and also has a second wife and kids about the same ages as hers.  Pete frets that Debbie could develop the same kind of emotional distance with him that she has with Oliver, particularly as they go through a rough patch in THIS IS 40.  

The protagonists’ joint fear is stagnation, not mortality.  Have they become so at ease around each other that all mystery is gone?  With his legs spread eagle in the air, Pete asks Debbie to check out and confirm what he hopes is a hemorrhoid.  She thinks nothing of barging in on him while he’s on the toilet.  He uses the bathroom for alone time to play iPad games and escape from her and their daughters Sadie (Maude Apatow) and Charlotte (Iris Apatow).  They don’t hate one another, at least not most of the time, but the strains of running businesses, raising a family, and turning an age deemed culturally significant have piled up.   

Thankfully the Pete and Debbie in THIS IS 40 are dialed down from the bickering couple that first appeared in KNOCKED UP.  They engage in their fair share of arguments, but this time around the relationship isn’t as acrimonious and Debbie, while still quick to anger, isn’t as shrill.  Whether they’re having a conversation or talking to others, all the chatter functions like therapy sessions.  (One funny moment has the pair attempting to use counselor-approved language while they fight.)  

THIS IS 40 works better as light drama than comedy, with humor defusing the bombs being lobbed in the marriage.  The jokes rely on common observations than insight, but writer-director Judd Apatow corrals many of the niggling worries into a squirming mass of anxieties capable of being laughed at.  Despite the title, by no means is the film a definitive or universal statement on reaching middle age.  

For better or worse Apatow likes to take a lot of detours in his films.  This time the aimless course he follows makes more sense even though it could stand a more guided approach.  Still, the path leads to every nook and cranny in individual and shared lives to illuminate the totality of what the duo is dealing with.  There’s also no single destination where Pete and Debbie must arrive as long as they’re on the journey together.  

Grade: B-