Anyone But You Review
Funny and carried by the charm and chemistry between the two leads, Anyone But You mixes genuine laughs with beautiful Sydney scenery.
Ben (Glen Powell) and Bea (Sydney Sweeney) have an amazing first date, but bad luck and miscommunication turn their feelings ice cold. Flash forward a year or so, and the duo find themselves at the same destination wedding in Australia. But Ben’s ex-girlfriend is there with her new guy, and Bea’s parents bring her ex to try and reunite them. Ben and Bea, sensing opportunity, pretend to be falling for one another so that their respective families and friends get off their backs, but at what point does ‘pretending’ to be a couple turn into actually being a couple?
Anyone But You is billed as the ‘return of the rom com’, and in many respects it is a success.
Visually, this film is gorgeous. Australian scenery and Australian crews are tough to beat, and NSW and Sydney is on full stunning display here. The costuming, the array of beautiful people, the ridiculously opulent house; it’s all the sort of wish fulfillment, escapism we love in a rom-com.
Sydney Sweeney is fantastic in the film. She’s bright and smart and witty, and hits all the required comedy and romance beats. Glen Powell is similarly great, although comes off a little less witty. That being said, both have palpable energy, if not chemistry. Anyone But You also doesn’t shy away from making this one for the adults, and the romance here fizzes and steams.
The great bit about this movie is that it is funny. Perhaps not as funny as some of the all time great rom-coms, but certainly there are a number of laugh out loud moments - and in the audience we saw the screening with, laughs were plentiful from various different segments of the audience; young, old, male and female alike.
Anyone But You probably does falter slightly on the romance. It always feels like there is an extra 20 or 30% left across the film, both in terms of the general banter, antics and jokes, and the romance. Of course, it is steamy and sexy, but it never achieves that sort of warm hearted rom-com staying power that so many great London or New York set rom-com’s do. Perhaps that is just a function of the location, but it feels like there is an extra act or half-act that needs to be present in this film to make it really become a classic.
As it stands, Anyone But You is fun, gorgeous and will have you laughing out loud; even if you can’t really remember it in a month’s time.
