Anyone but You (2023)
Directed by Will Gluck
After an amazing first date, Bea and Ben’s fiery attraction turns ice cold — until they find themselves unexpectedly reunited at a destination wedding in Australia. So they do what any two mature adults would do: pretend to be a couple.
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What critics compared Anyone but You to
Except for the Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell romcom, Anyone But You, and the Jennifer Lawrence star vehicle, No Hard Feelings, the 2020s have been a relatively dire decade for theatrically released romcoms.
Yet the rom-com has been making a comeback as of late, thanks in large part to box office successes like "Anyone But You" as well as genre mashups like this year's "Heart Eyes."
Anyone But You and Babygirl were mere starters, just hearty enough to whet one’s appetite without spoiling dinner.
He’s got the same charm as Hugh Grant in Notting Hill or his co-star Dermot Mulroney in My Best Friend’s Wedding, and it’s difficult (if not impossible) not to fawn over him even when he’s sparring with Sweeney.
Directed by Will Gluck (“Friends with Benefits”) from a screenplay he wrote with Ilana Wolpert, “Anyone But You” might pass muster as a pleasant holiday-season diversion, but it’s also a reminder that even the most dazzling smiles and perfect bodies can’t sustain a two-hour movie.
Gluck and co-writer Ilana Wolpert hit just about every expected plot beat in their script, with an occasionally raunchy kick that puts it in the same category as Gluck’s other formulaic but enjoyable rom-com Friends with Benefits (though nothing in this movie ever gets quite as naughty), but Gluck’s ever-lively direction ensures that the film has enough energy to see itself toward the finish line in one piece.
Director Will Gluck (Easy A, Friends with Benefits) felt like a sure bet to resuscitate the kind of breezy, high-wattage rom-com that once defined the early aughts.
Right, the plot. It doesn’t really matter, and Gluck — a relatively seasoned rom-com vet (“Easy A,” “Friends with Benefits”) who was stranded at sea by the genre’s sudden disappearance and forced to direct “Peter Rabbit” movies until Sweeney came along in her rescue boat — doesn’t sweat the small stuff.
Regardless of that gleaming casting, director and co-writer Will Gluck crafts his first adult-oriented flick in 12 years — since Friends with Benefits, with Annie and the two Peter Rabbit movies since — as if it's still two, three or four decades back.
Anyone But You is directed by Will Gluck, who you may know for directing Easy A, Friends with Benefits, and Peter Rabbit.