This is definitely a chick flick.
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We’ve been down this road before with the HBO-spinoffs “Sex and the City“, “Sex and the City 2″ and “Entourage”, but one could make a compelling case that “How to Be Single” is more reprehensible than any of those titles.
She has become one of Hollywood’s fastest-rising stars after landing the coveted role of Anastasia Steele in the box office record-smashing “Fifty Shades of Grey” for which she received a BAFTA Rising Star Award nomination.
Lucy (Alison Brie) is at a bar – in her pajamas.
“How To Be Single” actually is a smart, fun and sweet movie. But when a modern love story elicits a few laughs while also showing off a NY that, under the direction of Christian Ditter, looks like a glimmering fairy land where bridges glow in the distance and fire escape stairwells rise high above the clouds, you probably, honestly, won’t really care that it doesn’t reflect reality.
It starts with Alice (Johnson), a law firm employee who is coming out of a failed relationship. That, coupled with Wilson’s raunchy, comedic performance as she drunkenly stumbles across the film, makes for an entertaining movie that, while lacking real substance or stellar acting, hints at themes to which we can definitely all relate. You can practically smell the balsam pines at the market when youthful Jake Lacy tries to persuade Mann that they should share a tree.
Meg (Leslie Mann), Alice’s older sister, is an OB-GYN who doesn’t want a baby, until she finally spends five minutes with one (this seems odd, considering her job) and is flooded with womanly hormones. And maybe “Wanna get married?” But it offers enough fresh, off-kilter humor to provide amusing comfort to those afflicted with the titular condition on its opening Valentine’s Day weekend. Timid and giggly, there is no dating indignity she won’t accept with big, understanding eyes.
The biggest shock is Wilson. Wilson provided the comic relief or the insanity, if you’d rather call it that. “My mom is of the mindset that you can have multiple marriages and it’s fine”, she smiles endearingly, “but she raised me to always work for myself and do life for myself and not for anyone else, especially for a man, because that will ultimately lead to disappointment in some regard”. “How To Be Single” is an equal opportunity film where the male characters are presented with depth.
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From scene to scene, “How to Be Single” scrolls through tones like a Tinder search, jumping from romance to penis jokes to – most jarring of all – the pain of a widower father (Damon Wayons Jr., as a boyfriend of Alice’s). His character is dealing with a lot of emotional baggage when it comes to his daughter and that adds another level to the story. David. New York City is full of lonely hearts seeking the right match, be it a love connection, a hook-up, or something in the middle.
