HOW TO BE SINGLE – The Review

Okay fellow film fans, are we ready for another flick attempting to replicate the BRIDESMAIDS box office bonanza? Hollywood has been frantically trying to clone that hit since it astounded the nay-sayers nearly five years ago. Back then none of the studio chiefs believed that audiences would flock to an “R” rated comedy that primarily focused on a group of woman (and mostly TV actresses at that!). Its success turned supporting player Melissa McCarthy into an “above the title” film star who headlines at one major comedy each year (she’s nearly a film franchise on her own). Now the execs want to tap into a slightly younger market, maybe the Rogen/Franco/Hill late 20’s crowd, but just a tad older than THAT AWKWARD MOMENT. And they’re banking on one of the minor BRIDESMAIDS players, the Aussie firecracker that stole scenes from lead Kristen Wiig, Rebel Wilson, who later headlined the PITCH PERFECT flicks. She’s now dishing out sage advice to Dakota (FIFTY SHADES OF GREY) Johnson on HOW TO BE SINGLE.

Wilson practically explodes off the screen when the film begins. As Robin she’s a one woman party, always on the move, and bouncing from club to club in NYC. But then the film abruptly backtracks to the story’s main focus, recent college grad Alice (Johnson). We first encounter her as a freshman when she has a “meet cute” with future beau Josh (Nicholas Braun). Jump to graduation as she tells a crest-fallen Josh that she wants to take a “break” from their relationship. After all, she’s moving to the “big apple” and wants to keep her options open. Josh begrudgingly agrees. Alice crashes at the plush apartment of her single big sis, Meg (Leslie Mann), a hard-working obstetrician, then begins a paralegal gig at a big law firm, where receptionist Robin introduces her to the singles scene, mainly the “do’s and the “don’ts”. One of the “do’s” is a hunky bartender Tom (Anders Holm). He’s slingin’ drinks while verbally sparring with the pub’s upstairs neighbor Lucy (Alison Brie). She’s taking advantage of the free Wi-fi essential to her determined online search for “Mr. Right”. Meanwhile Meg suddenly comes down with “baby fever” and searches for a “donor”. This later complicates her fling with the decade or so younger Ken (Jake Lacy). As for her kid sis, will Alice re-unite with Josh once she has “sewn her wild oats” or will she embrace Robin’s “wild style”?

Though Wilson is most prominently featured in the ads and TV spots, this is really the story of Johnson’s Alice (she takes over the film’s narration from Robin early on). The talented second (no, third) generation actress helped make GREY more tolerable than it deserved which serves this often sluggish script well. Her screen presence makes the flighty, impulsive Alice somewhat sympathetic. As mentioned earlier, Wilson is a comedic force of nature making Robin’s irresponsible antics (blacking out drunk and waking in a stranger’s bedroom is more dangerous than wacky) a touch more palatable. For several scenes she comes off merely as a less musical cousin to PITCH’s Amy (both make men turn to jelly). Unfortunately, like many award show comic hosts, she just disappears from the stage for great clumps of time (at lest 20 minutes it seems), making the producers guilty of “bait and switch” marketing. Mann builds on the mature, no-nonsense character she’s aced in her hubby’s flicks (especially THIS IS 40), and beams as the woman who decides to travel down a different path (and she can really draw blood with her verbal jabs). These ladies fare much better than the very talented Ms. Brie (so fabulous as Annie on TV’s “Community”), whose comic skills are wasted with the ludicrous, lazily conceived Lucy. Why can’t she be as sharp and smart as the other characters? And to top it off, just as in last year’s trifle SLEEPING WITH OTHER PEOPLE, Brie must again behave inappropriately in front of a gaggle of toddlers! C’mon! The male actors have even less to work with, script-wise. This hampers the gifted Damon Wayans Jr. as a “could have been interesting” suitor for Alice, whose story arc seems brutally cut short. Braun is an affable boy next door who at least gets to move past being Alice’s doormat (unfortunately right into “Jerktown”). Holm is never completely convincing as an irresistible “babe magnet” and seems like a revamp of TV’s sitcom stud Sam “Mayday” Malone, particularly in exchanges with Brie there’s a big “Cheers” vibe (but not nearly as clever). The best of the boys may be the energetic and charming Lacy (perhaps the only bright light of the dismal LOVE THE COOPERS) who has a real leading man comic charisma (check out OBVIOUS CHILD). May he find a film more worthy of his talents…the future of the “rom com” just may depend on him.

The best that can be said about the whole “she-bang’ is that it’s a bright candy-colored “infomercial” for Manhattan with cute shops and fun, safe bars on every corner and no piles of garbage in sight…ever! This helps peg this flick as the wilder kid sister of the SEX AND THE CITY films and TV series (heck, Meg references that HBO hit). The tepid direction is definitely high-end tube style (aside from a nicely framed shot of Alice alone on a fire escape) with far too many montages (Alice and Robin having fun shopping, Meg tends to her patients, Lucy endures lousy dates, Alice decorates her new digs) set to turgid pop tunes. Once again, just as in the PITCH flicks, Wilson is used as an easy laugh, to energize the flagging pace. When one scene falls flat cut to Robin, the boozing, toking, fornicating live action blond Tasmanian Devil. In the last act she is almost humanized by delivering a “wake-up call” to Alice (finally good advise!), but it doesn’t quite mesh with the previous debauchery. As I mentioned earlier, the sloppy subplot with Alice and David tries to invoke pathos, but it seems rushed. Perhaps the Lucy scenes could have been jettisoned (her desperate debacles are tiresome) to give it room to breathe and be truly moving. Or it might just feel as flat as most of the film. Rebel is often raunchy fun, but there’s really no need to mingle with HOW TO BE SINGLE. As they say in “speed-dating”…next!

2 Out of 5