Rent Anyone But You (2023)

Anyone But You review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

The very premise of Anyone But You is not all that unique for a romantic comedy. A mismatched pair find themselves forced together amid a mutual destination wedding, more or less drawing from Much Ado About Nothing. But like any good romantic comedy, the allure comes from how the chemistry works. I don’t watch these films to determine if the feuding couple ends up together because the genre logic has ensured they will. What makes a film like this worth watching is the effort it puts into its vacation farce of a romance.

There’s a commitment to a bit from Sydney Sweeney as Bea, a struggling law student. She has a chance encounter with the dreamy dude Ben (Glen Powell) at a coffee shop. Their meet-cute, however, takes a silly turn when Bea spills on herself in the bathroom and has to dry her pants in a hurry to make a good first impression. It’s not an original bit, but Sweeney performs fine for a woman who has to use the hand drier on her jeans. Powell’s performance works as for being believable as a guy who can go from a sympathetic boyfriend to a snarky jerk on the drop of a dime. Their opening scenes have a solid flow, where they quickly go from a cute new couple to broken-up rivals.

With the sisters of Ben and Bea getting married, the two souls are pushed toward each other on a trip with the family to Sydney. They still have feelings for each other as they stumble around each other. It’s an aspect that the family takes note of as well. This leads to the family trying and failing to push Ben and Bea back together. Realizing this, the duo decide to make things easier for their family by pretending to fall back in love again. The manipulation on top of manipulation creates a mildly tangled web of romance and a decent flow to keep this story interesting.

The amusing gags go the extra mile to be sillier and fitting of an R-rated comedy. There’s a decent dose of slapstick when Ben and Bea pretend to grab each other’s butts while on a hike, only for it to end with Ben completely naked while fearing wildlife has crawled up his anus. Later, the two of them will attempt to reenact a scene from Titanic on a boat, only for it to go awry and lead to a daring rescue in the water. All of it leads up to a surprisingly sexy and passionate sex scene between the two leads, making the most of the rarity that is an R-rated romantic comedy.

The chemistry works so well that I wish the large supporting cast were funnier. The other characters are present as one-joke entities, from the nature nut Pete (GaTa) to the buff dufus fiance Jonathan (Darren Barnet). Their bits become tiresome and reach cartoonish heights in their scheming that kept taking me out of the film. Many cliche moments don’t hit as well as they should, with the reliance on animal close-ups for lacking reaction shots. For as lavish as Sydney appears in this film, there are a lot of bog-standard vacation money shots present, which does little to differentiate from the flow of something like Mamma Mia, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, or The Book Club.

The good news is that Anyone But You mostly works where it counts. The romance is there, and Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell approach the gags with strong performances. They do their best to make lemonade from a script of old lemons, making the film more enduring for its energy than for hit-or-miss moments of comedy and romance.