Christian Ditter
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Connections, in both directions
The connection isn't kismet; "How to Be Single" is based on the 2008 novel by Liz Tuccillo, a former "Sex and the City" writer.
Esta se muda a Nueva York con la esperanza de seguirle los pasos a Carrie Bradshaw, el rol emblemático de Sarah Jessica Parker en “Sex and the City”, y rápidamente se da cuenta que la soltería no es para ella.
A host of suitors arise, fizzle out, and spring back up in this rom com adapted from Sex and the City writer Liz Tuccillo’s 2008 novel of the same name.
It remains a puny little amateur-night rip-off of Sex and the City, without the saucy wit or sharply-drawn personalities.
There's the film's de facto lead, Alice (Dakota Johnson), who has broken up with her good-guy college boyfriend, Josh (Nicholas Braun, the poor man's Justin Long) of four years so she can go act out scenes from "Sex and the City" until she decides that she wants him back.
The screenplay for How to Be Single — based on the novel by former Sex and the City writer Liz Tuccillo, who also co-wrote the book He’s Just Not That Into You — was co-written by Dana Fox (Couples Retreat) and Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein, the same duo who wrote Never Been Kissed and, yes, the movie version of He’s Just Not That Into You.
He's Just Not That Into You (2009)
Directed by Ken Kwapis
influenced How to Be Single (2016)
Plot Themes
Loosely based on the novel by Liz Tuccillo , co-author of “He’s Just Not That Into You,” “How to Be Single” follows several characters and their romantic entanglements—or their strenuous efforts to avoid them.
(The film it most resembles is He’s Just Not That Into You, although that one had Drew Barrymore and was therefore, by definition, better.)
There have also been more than a few ensemble films dealing with love, from He's Just Not That Into You to Valentine's Day to New Year's Eve .
The story, cribbed from Liz Tuccillo’s book, is credited to rom-com writing duo Marc Silverstein & Abby Kohn (The Vow, Valentine’s Day, He’s Just Not That Into You) and Dana Fox (What Happens in Vegas), so it shouldn’t be surprising that the film subscribes to so many clichéd notions of love and lust in the Big City.
This would make more sense if “How to Be Single” were an ensemble film like “He’s Just Not That Into You,” both of which are based by books by Liz Tuccillo.
I Feel Pretty, written and directed by Abby Kohn and Marc Silversteen (the team behind the movies Never Been Kissed and How to Be Single) has a lot to unpack, including themes of body image, self-esteem and self-confidence, dating and relationships, appearances, the messages of advertising and the importance of friends.
Based on that summary, you might be tempted to dismiss "I Feel Pretty" sight unseen, and not merely because the past work of writer-directors Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein (who together wrote the screenplays for "How to Be Single" and "He's Just Not That Into You") doesn't inspire confidence.
Charting Renee's transformation, seasoned rom-com writers-turned-directors Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein (He's Just Not That Into You, The Vow, How to be Single) craft a typical "make a wish" flick, but set their sights on body image.
Produced by McG (so enjoy the irony of a film about unrealistic beauty standards coming from the guy who made the Charlie’s Angels movies) and written and directed by Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein (the team behind the passable How To Be Single and the vomitorious He’s Just Not That Into You), I Feel Pretty finds Schumer playing Renee, a self-hating would-be career girl whose near-concussion in a Soul Cycle class prompts her to believe she is, per her longtime wish, “undeniably pretty.”
But screenwriters Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein, the minds behind scripts for films like Never Been Kissed, The Vow and How to Be Single making their feature-length directorial debut, can’t seem to get beyond sitcom platitudes.
Veteran rom-com screenwriters Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein (He’s Just Not That Into You, How to Be Single , Never Been Kissed) make their directorial debut with a story straight out of a 1980s high-concept comedy: Renee Bennett (Schumer) is a frustrated single woman in a dead-end job working for the online portal of beauty company Lily LeClaire.
With its 12-year narrative timeframe, comfy middle-class Britishisms and sparky pairing of striving, pure-hearted girl and raffish, self-oriented guy, “Love, Rosie” evokes Rob Reiner’s aforementioned 1989 hit far less than it does Lone Scherfig’s “One Day” (2011) — another polished adaptation of a megaselling romantic novel, but one that fell oddly short of commercial expectations.
Love, Rosie will appeal to teenage girls, should cheer up those disappointed with the adaptation of the similarly themed One Day, and will interest those who have enjoyed the Brit-coms of Richard Curtis over the years.
Like Lone Scherfig's disastrous One Day , the film involves best friends who seem destined to become a couple, but don't.
Love, Rosie plays out a little like a cross between a Richard Curtis film and One Day without ever managing to find its own groove.
They then went on to work on Valentine’s Day (2010), The Vow (2012), and now, How To Be Single, a film also co-produced by Barrymore.
(And on this Valentine’s Day, it’s certainly preferable to his 2010 film “Valentine’s Day.”)
The story, cribbed from Liz Tuccillo’s book, is credited to rom-com writing duo Marc Silverstein & Abby Kohn (The Vow, Valentine’s Day, He’s Just Not That Into You) and Dana Fox (What Happens in Vegas), so it shouldn’t be surprising that the film subscribes to so many clichéd notions of love and lust in the Big City.
No surprise that co-screenwriters Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein also collaborated on Valentine's Day, Garry Marshall's 2010 movie in which a cavalcade of stars do jazz hands about love (not to be confused with 2011's New Year's Eve, in which a cavalcade of stars do jazz hands about love, but in December).
It is directed by Christian Ditter from a screenplay by a veteran romcom writing crew: Abby Kohn, Mark Silverstein and Dana Fox (whose CVs include Valentine's Day, He's Just Not That Into You and The Wedding Date).
The slot has previously worked for Warner’s Valentine’s Day (which took $110m domestically and $106m internationally in 2010) and He’s Just Not That Into You ($94m at home and $85m elsewhere in 2009), though Single might be limited, in the US at least, by its R rating.
It reminds me of What Women Want from 2000.
Love, Rosie is a comedy of errors in the vein of When Harry Met Sally… and Four Weddings and a Funeral, complete with every imaginable stumbling block that could keep its leads apart, from controlling girlfriends (Tamsin Egerton and Suki Waterhouse) to unfortunate flight delays to (yes) multiple weddings and even a funeral.
Clearly, there’s romantic-comedy potential in this situation, since variations on it have been done before—and far, far better in, for example, Four Weddings and a Funeral and My Best Friend’s Wedding.
Much of the blame has to rest with Juliette Towhidi (Calendar Girls), whose screenplay based on Cecelia Ahern’s bestseller Where Rainbows End, fails to do much beyond playing second fiddle to Four Weddings and A Funeral.
Updating My Best Friend's Wedding for the millennial set, director Christian Ditter's Love, Rosie casts a winsome Lily Collins in what might once have been Julia Roberts's role (think eyebrows, not teeth) — though in this case, marriage is no real obstacle to true love.
Clearly, there’s romantic-comedy potential in this situation, since variations on it have been done before—and far, far better in, for example, Four Weddings and a Funeral and My Best Friend’s Wedding.
Instead, he heads to Harvard while she winds up holding the baby (not his), paving the way for umpteen airport dashes, missed connections and predictable Four Weddings/My Best Friend’s Wedding showdowns.
Collins actually evokes that film’s lead, Anne Hathaway, in her porcelain physicality and warmly klutzy comic persona; even the appearance on the soundtrack of K.T. Tunstall’s “Suddenly I See,” the song that introduced Hathaway’s breakout turn in “The Devil Wears Prada,” seems calculated to forge the connection.
Love, Rosie is a comedy of errors in the vein of When Harry Met Sally… and Four Weddings and a Funeral, complete with every imaginable stumbling block that could keep its leads apart, from controlling girlfriends (Tamsin Egerton and Suki Waterhouse) to unfortunate flight delays to (yes) multiple weddings and even a funeral.
A predictable comedy about missed connections and misplaced affections, Love, Rosie squanders the talents of engaging leads Lily Collins (Snow White in Mirror Mirror) and Sam Claflin (The Hunger Games franchise’s Finnick Odair ).
Director Christian Ditter opts for close-ups as the movie's default mode, and although Collins ("The Mortal Instruments") and Claflin ("The Hunger Games" movies) hold the screen exceptionally well, the camera's persistent intimacy suggests that what's unfolding is a melodrama of monumental proportions and not a flimsy rom-com.
But at heart this is actually a sweet, sentimental film focusing on the adventures of four single women in New York City, and yes, there’s a “Sex and the City” reference here, as well as nods to “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” “Friends” and other recent pop-culture touchstones about single women trying to make a go of it in today’s crazy world.
Cut from the same cloth as “Sex and the City” and “Bridget Jones’s Diary” — both explicitly quoted — with a dash of “Girls” thrown in for whiny, self-defeating good measure, what should be a fizzy comedy of contradictory manners instead comes across as dutiful and unforgivably dull.
At one point, Mann’s Lucy tells Alice that she needs to stop expecting Bridget Jones’s Diary and episodes of Sex and the City to provide some window into what it’s really like to be single.
Gently poking fun at Bridget Jones’s Diary and Sex and the City (a show Tuccillo wrote for) makes for knowing and amusing moments and the evolving relationship between Alice and Robin delivers a satisfying denouement.
It features the heirs of “Sex and the City” (for which Tuccillo once wrote an episode) and “Bridget Jones’s Diary” — both of which are namedropped in the dialogue.
Meanwhile, the film’s director Christian Ditter’s last work was the melodrama Love, Rosie (2014), and additional screenwriter Dana Fox — who wrote The Wedding Date (2005), What Happens in Vegas (2008) and Couples Retreat (2009) — also created the 2012 sitcom Ben and Kate , which starred Dakota Johnson.
One of the best parts of the script from Abby Kohn & Marc Silverstein (“He’s Just Not That Into You”) and Dana Fox (“ Couples Retreat ”)—although those previous films theoretically wouldn’t provide much cause for optimism—is the way that it judges none of the characters for their sexual choices.
The only thing that keeps it watchable is the yeoman work of a talented ensemble laid to waste by soulless, juvenile writing by Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein (“He’s Just Not That Into You”) that’s been poorly doctored by Dana Fox (“Couples Retreat”).
The screenplay for How to Be Single — based on the novel by former Sex and the City writer Liz Tuccillo, who also co-wrote the book He’s Just Not That Into You — was co-written by Dana Fox (Couples Retreat) and Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein, the same duo who wrote Never Been Kissed and, yes, the movie version of He’s Just Not That Into You.
The 2008 novel of the same name – Tucillo’s follow-up to the self-help book, co-written with Greg Behrendt, on which He’s Just Not… was based – was adapted by Dana Fox (Couples Retreat) and He’s Just Not… screenwriters Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein.
Kohn and Silverstein’s breakthrough script was the charming Never Been Kissed (1999), which Barrymore starred in and also exec-produced.
The screenplay for How to Be Single — based on the novel by former Sex and the City writer Liz Tuccillo, who also co-wrote the book He’s Just Not That Into You — was co-written by Dana Fox (Couples Retreat) and Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein, the same duo who wrote Never Been Kissed and, yes, the movie version of He’s Just Not That Into You.
No surprise that co-screenwriters Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein also collaborated on Valentine's Day, Garry Marshall's 2010 movie in which a cavalcade of stars do jazz hands about love (not to be confused with 2011's New Year's Eve, in which a cavalcade of stars do jazz hands about love, but in December).
There have also been more than a few ensemble films dealing with love, from He's Just Not That Into You to Valentine's Day to New Year's Eve .
These digressions mostly wind up in the same place “fetch” did in Mean Girls, and Wilson’s one-note I’m-so-crazy schtick is starting to get very stale.
Meanwhile, the film’s director Christian Ditter’s last work was the melodrama Love, Rosie (2014), and additional screenwriter Dana Fox — who wrote The Wedding Date (2005), What Happens in Vegas (2008) and Couples Retreat (2009) — also created the 2012 sitcom Ben and Kate , which starred Dakota Johnson.
The story, cribbed from Liz Tuccillo’s book, is credited to rom-com writing duo Marc Silverstein & Abby Kohn (The Vow, Valentine’s Day, He’s Just Not That Into You) and Dana Fox (What Happens in Vegas), so it shouldn’t be surprising that the film subscribes to so many clichéd notions of love and lust in the Big City.
Depicting the amorous misadventures of young and, in one case, not-so-young New Yorkers as they go looking for love in all the wrong places, this latest effort from the screenwriters of such films as He's Just Not That Into You, Valentine's Day and What Happens in Vegas inevitably trods familiar territory.
It’s enough to make any rom-com fan ache for talk-heavy genre offerings like You’ve Got Mail, When Harry Met Sally, and Sleepless In Seattle, which allowed their characters to actually get to know each other as they fall in love.
But Love, Rosie isn’t really kind of romantic comedy given to big declarations of love, which at least effectively jettisons overwrought cinematic troupes like the tried-and-true “run through an airport” scheme (hard to do with current aviation securities in place) or the perpetually popular “break up a wedding” scene (which has only ever worked in The Graduate, and even then to questionable results).
Along the way, director Christian Ditter and writers Abby Kohn, Marc Silverstein, and Dana Fox poke some good-natured fun at other relationship comedies such as Sex and the City, Love Actually, and the Bridget Jones series.
From mildly terrible (Love Actually) to offensively terrible (New Year’s Eve), there’s an audience for these films.
The book was writer Liz Tuccillo’s fiction follow-up to her self-help bestseller “He’s Just Not That Into You,” which was turned into another movie that bragged about its tough-love credentials before collapsing into a torrent of “Love Actually” happy endings.