Anyone But You should be good. Its director Will Gluck is no stranger to adapting classic literature into the modern romcom format. He did it with Emma Stone in 2010’s underrated Easy A and with Domnhall Gleeson in the Peter Rabbit franchise. However, this modern version of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing relies too much on the charms of Glen Powell to overshadow the miscasting of Sydney Sweeney and an awkward, clunky script.
As most romantic comedies do, Anyone But You starts with a meet-cute, where Ben (Powell) and Bea (Sweeney) meet in a coffee shop after the latter needs the bathroom. They flirt, she walks out with toilet paper on her shoe and he is smitten. They spend the rest of the day and night together before Bea leaves early out of habit, only to come back and overhear that their time together didn’t mean anything to him.
Of course, they meet again, this time through Bea’s sister, Halle (Hadley Robinson), and Ben’s family friend, Claudia (Alexandra Shipp), who are engaged. When the couple decides to get married in Australia, their friends and family scheme to get Ben and Bea together to prevent them from ruining it. Exes (Darren Barnet and Charlee Fraser), best friends (Gata), overbearing family members (Rachel Griffiths and Dermot Mulroney), and an Australian surfer’s peehole (Joe Davidson) try to bring them together without destroying themselves.
Director Will Gluck co-wrote the film with Ilana Wolpert, known for her work on High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. The dialogue is clunky and pauses appear out of nowhere and do little to expand character development. Shakespeare quotes appear in the foreground to mark development in the story. At times, the script contradicts itself. Shipp’s character says at one point if the troubled couple doesn’t start to behave, her ‘something borrowed’ would be a knife. Her fiance then chimes in that it would also be “shiny and new.”
Anyone But You takes from so many other romcoms. The enemies to lovers and fake dating tropes are what love stories are built on and what many other films have done better. Certain crass moments seem to pop up out of nowhere with little transition time. Instead of being charming and funny, like in Trainwreck, they come off as jarring.
Gluck even steals from his own romcoms. Natasha Bedingfield’s “Unwritten” plays a major role in the film’s plot, much like the same singer’s “Pocketful of Sunshine” did in Easy A.
Glen Powell oozes charm. Sure, he plays the cocksure d-bag with the heart of gold that he played variations of in Set It Up and Top Gun Maverick, but here he transforms an unsteady script into something workable. He portrays the full extent of his character’s emotions
Sweeney on the other hand, fails to emote much past her doe eyes. When Bea and Ben are on good terms, she plays along with Powell quite well. But when their characters are supposed to be verbally sparring which is most of the film, she can’t keep up much past a one-note bitchy facade. It’s not that she doesn’t belong in Anyone But You, but Bea doesn’t feel like the right for her. Perhaps, she should have switched with Alexandra Shipp, who would have been able to capture the full range of a modern Shakespeare heroine.
Earlier in December, Julia Stiles made headlines by reciting her infamous poem from 10 Things I Hate About You, a modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. People in the audience teared up with nostalgia. Unlike that adaption and many others like it, Anyone But You lacks the charm and smarts to bring out the best of the original text. Instead, it leaves a mess that even Powell can’t charm his way out of.
Anyone But You is now playing in theaters. Watch the trailer below.
