Review: How to Be Single (2016)
The other day at my retail job, a customer tried to make me promise her that I would never marry.
"Every marriage has an expiry date," she insisted. "The secret is to catch on early to when you and your husband realise that you don't have anything in common anymore. Now we're separated, but great friends. No anger. All of my married friends are miserable or divorcing. Marriage just isn't a permanent thing. Trust me. Don't do it."
As she said all of this, I looked down at her four year old daughter, who wasn't listening (partly because her mum had whispered a lot of the conversation to me) and was focused instead on the skipping rope I was selling her. She didn't seem like a child damaged from a broken home. Maybe it was all she knew.
I myself have never been in a "serious" romantic relationship, although I have experienced heartbreak. Maybe the lady - though alarmingly abrupt- had a point. I've always been single. It hasn't done me too much damage.
Has it?
I thought I would look today at a film focused on a single woman, with the hope that maybe I would find an empowered character, happy to grow into the best version of herself that she can be until she happens to meet someone good for her.
So, how does the film depict the single woman? Let's find out together - it's the only thing this Valentine's Day I will probably be doing with at least one other person.
Based on the book of the same name by Liz Tuccillo, How to Be Single follows Alice, played by Dakota Johnson. She’s been in a relationship with Josh (played by Nicholas Braun) for years, but decides to take a break. She's never been single, and wants to work out who she is so she can be truly happy. However, when Josh breaks up with her for real, Alice is thrust into the world of singletons properly. With the help of her friend Robin (Rebel Wilson), she tries to find happiness in the single person lifestyle. Meanwhile, Alice’s sister Meg (played by Leslie Mann) decides she wants to have a child despite being single, and Lucy (Alison Brie) designs dating app algorithms for herself to try and determine a successful relationship, although they don’t seem to be working for her. Will Tom the bartender (played by Anders Holm), who she meets in real life be any good for her?
This is an enjoyable, good film. A rarity for this blog, but true. For a start, it’s funny. I wasn’t crying with laughter, but some of the jokes were so surprising and refreshing, it felt fun to be able to laugh with them. The four female leads are all entertaining and each bring their own comedic skill and timing to their part very well. This was actually the first time I’ve actually seen Rebel Wilson in a role I liked from her, which sounds bad because I know she’s popular. Until this film, I always thought that she had a set comedic routine in her work and stuck to it. While I still agree with this thought, this film utilises Wilson in the right ways and gives her just enough screen time, not relying on her to deliver all of the laughs in the film. One of the comedic highlights for me was when both hungover Alice and Wilson’s Robin were late for work, prompting Robin to take them on a “shorter” route, which would also refresh them and make them appear less hungover. The payoff for this joke, while half-expected, did still manage to surprise me in its presentation and I had a laugh from it.
The main character Alice receives mixed feelings from me. Until viewing How to Be Single, I had only seen Johnson in the Fifty Shades of Grey films (believe me, I’ll get to those) and I liked her a hundred times better here. She presents Alice in a very likeable way, which is good when it’s hard to decide how to feel about Alice herself. Throughout the film, Alice openly has no idea of who she is or what she really wants, admitting she always rejects her own desires in case other people find them silly. The film ends with a monologue from Alice, overlaid with a montage of where the films characters have ended up in their relationships. It’s a strong monologue that delivers the very real worry of a question: “How good at being alone do we really want to be? Isn’t there a danger that you’ll get so good at being single, so set in your ways, that you’ll miss out on the chance of being with someone really great?” It’s something I wonder about anyway.
However, the film ends with Alice achieving one of her dreams on her own and being happy. She turns to the camera, either breaking the fourth wall as her voiceover ends her speech to let us know she’s okay in solitude, or possibly coming into contact with “the one” for the first time – I think it’s open to interpretation. From this scene, I got what I always wanted from a chick flick where the character hasn’t been in healthy relationships throughout: she’s out in the world, single and happy to discover herself as she goes after her dreams. She feels stronger in herself. She knows who she is. So why am I not quite content?
Unfortunately, I never felt like I really got to know Alice, because so much of the film was spent on her not knowing herself who she was or who she wanted to be. I’m glad we finally got to see her doing things on her own at the end of the film, and I think I could have been happy with the implication that she will continue to grow on her own for a while, as she usually ends up in relationships. However, if that look she does towards the camera at the film really does suggest she is meeting someone new, (as I interpret it) it feels like spoiling her moment. By having Alice officially on her own at the end of the film, I could have believed that she had worked on herself enough to be confident and ready to meet someone eventually, just in the audiences imagination after the film. If the film has ended with her meeting someone new, then it feels like the filmmakers have just undone the last fifteen minutes of the film, which would be a shameful disservice. Like I said though, while she might be one of the blander characters, Alice is likeable, and you do want her to make the right decisions for herself.
Despite the above point about Alice, one of the films strengths comes from the writing of its characters. Everyone is flawed, but no-one is the bad guy. They’re just people, trying to work out who they are, how they feel and what they want. They make mistakes, but no one is sincerely mean or malicious. It’s good to see these characters actually feeling like people for a lot of the time, even in their ridiculous times. If anything, we feel more connected to them in the ridiculous moments because they are easy to connect to on a realistic level. Additionally, most of the men in this film are very charming and I can see why the women are attracted to them.
To talk about the characters properly though, I do have to address the biggest flaw I find with this film.
How to Be Single suffers from what I like to call "The Love Actually Epidemic." There's probably something out there like this already, but I'm going to coin this term for now to help explain what I mean. The Love Actually Epidemic is when a film (usually a romantic comedy) is impacted negatively by having too many characters with sub-plots. This makes the pacing suffer due to time being set aside for characters who really don’t need it. It also takes away the viewers chance to connect with a main character, as there is focus taken away from them to focus on a side character. I really like the subplot for Leslie Mann's character, as she is Alice’s older sister and they have a good bond throughout the film that is necessary for Alice as the main character. Robin is always with Alice and she has no subplot but she adds positively to the main plot. The problematic character here who slows down the plot is Lucy.
This is a shame, as I actually liked this character and how she was performed. She also gets some funny moments in the film, notably during a session reading to children which goes wrong. However, the synopsis states that this film follows four single friends: Alice, Robin, Meg and Lucy. Yet while the first three women are connected, none of them seem to even know Lucy. Alice only knows about Lucy because she slept with Tom, who admits his affections are really for Lucy. So while Lucy is enjoyable, there is no need for her to exist here, not for the amount of screen time she has anyway. If anything, the fourth character with a subplot is Tom: we see more of him, and watch him grow more than Lucy does. Again, even this could have been cut down. This film is almost two hours long, when it only really needed to be about 88 minutes.
I don’t know if I can blame Lucy entirely for the pacing issues this film has. The film opens with Alice having her meet-cute with Josh, then we flash forward four years and it turns out that they became a couple and now she wants a break from Josh. So... what was the point in showing the meet-cute at all? Why not just establish the pair in their relationship for the first five minutes and highlight some flaws in it, which would make us understand why Alice was unhappy or confused in how she felt? I think that would have been a much better way to establish the characters and their relationship. What we get instead is rushed, and it’s the beginning to some other problematic scenes. A similar issue happens with Alice when she meets with David (played by Damon Wayans Jr.), and they share their first kiss while looking out of a large window at the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. Cut to three months later, Alice meets his young daughter for the first time, and David is emotionally overwhelmed by it, leading to him breaking up with her. Alice appears devastated, but how can we feel for her when we never saw them together? How are we supposed to feel for Alice in her desire to be in a relationship, when we never actually SEE her in one? Ironically, the most developed relationship we see her in is with Tom the barman. Alice and Tom know they will never be a couple, and become friendly acquaintances through their times together, yet they actually have conversations alone together, something we never really get to see from Alice with David or Josh.
As much as I liked Leslie Mann’s subplot, the introduction to it was somewhat bizarre, again thanks to pacing issues. Meg very passionately claims she would never have a baby when we first see her (where her claims are very well placed for comedic effect), yet there’s a scene where she has to look after a baby girl and at the end of it, she decides she wants her own child. She then starts applying for sperm donors. It’s a real turn in her character in just a couple of minutes, but luckily Meg stays consistent and strong for the rest of the film, it was just an odd start.
As stated before, most of the men in this film are charming in their own flawed ways. Nicholas Braun is the only male character I personally can’t see any attractive qualities in, but I could see how he and Alice were together and why she held onto the idea of him after the break up. Anders Holm as Tom was likeable, and it felt like he could be a good friend, even if not a good romantic partner. Lucy’s boyfriend George (played by Jason Mantzoukas) was charming and funny in his own way, though his screen time was limited. While we didn’t see much of David, he had a lovely scene at the films end with his daughter, which brought a tear to my eye. The strongest male character had to be Meg’s boyfriend Ken (played by Jake Lacy), who is younger than her. Ken is a sweet and naïve character, but deeply cares for Meg, and he’s the one trying hard to make things work between them. When he learns she is pregnant via sperm donor, his reaction is phenomenal and I loved it. If you want to be charmed by this film, I recommend this scene alone as a highlight for that.
The film is shot well, with one particularly good shot of Alice going to sit on the stairs attached to her building during her birthday party, in which the camera rotates at an impressive angle to capture her in that moment. The soundtrack was a bit less impressive, though certainly still strong enough for a motion picture. However, I don’t know why some films have songs that sing what we see. How to Be Single fell prey to this when Alice was shown arriving in New York city, while a female pop singer vocalised "Welcome to New York." Just those four words, over and over, making a song apparently. It was so early on in the film, I began to worry about what I’d gotten myself into. Luckily, this is the only time the soundtrack sticks out to me in a negative way. Christian Ditter did a good job directing here.
Overall, I would recommend How to Be Single, whether you’re alone on Valentine’s Day wanting some comfortable escapism, or just someone looking to watch a decent romantic comedy any time of the year.
And to the lady I served, who wanted me to vow I would never marry: I’m afraid I can’t do that. I’m happy being single, but if I can find someone who can add to that happiness, I would have to be a fool to turn him away.
Also, you were a complete stranger, so it would be a bit odd for me to promise something so big to someone I’d never met before, and will probably never see again.
THE SCOREBOARD
Chick Flick Check List Elements: 1, 7, 10, 13, 15 (+2), 17, 24, 29, 34 (but the film is hyper-aware of this), 35, 36, 53, 54 (+1), 59, 61
Total: 18
Is this really a chick flick or will men like it too? This is definitely a female centred film. Maybe men would find a couple of laughs, but they are all very definitely aimed women.
Would I recommend this film? Yes
Quote of the film: “The thing about being single is, you should cherish it. Because, in a week, or a lifetime, of being alone, you may only get one moment. One moment, when you're not tied up in a relationship with anyone. A parent, a pet, a sibling, a friend. One moment, when you stand on your own. Really, truly single. And then... It's gone.” - Alice
Film rating: 6/10
