How To Be Single
Director: Christian Ditter
Talent: Dakota Johnson, Rebel Wilson, Leslie Mann, Damon Wayans Jr.
Release Date: 19th February 2016
In this film, four characters’ occasionally intersecting single lives are dealt with in a sort of parabolic form, with Alice (Johnson) taking centre stage as the newly-single, newly-New York-living twentysomething who’s learning to let her hair down for the first time, under the guidance of the brash bon vivant Robin (Wilson). Romantic comedies, perhaps more than any other genre, aim nakedly for the ‘relatable’ as well as the instructive, and this is no different. It is let down drastically by the comedic and dramatic ineffectiveness of its cast, however, with only Wilson possessing the requisite chops to consistently make the frankly erratic material land. As such, more successful examples of the genre are referenced in reverential (Bridget Jones’ Diary) and critical (Sex and the City) terms by characters, a choice that has the net effect of making this film feel decidedly small-time, in exchange for a few cheap laughs. A lonely experience.
Words: Oisín Murphy-Hall
