The much ballyhooed Sydney Sweeney-Glen Powell rom-com has arrived, and it hits on all your favourite genre tropes, writes Yasmin Omar.
If, like me, you are into rom-coms and Extremely Online, you have been greatly anticipating the release of Anyone But You, starring two of Hollywood’s most in-demand young movie stars, Sydney Sweeney (Euphoria) and Glen Powell (Top Gun: Maverick). There has been a constant stream of media attention about the movie for months: the CinemaCon snafu when Powell gushed about the film being a ‘hard R’, the behind-the-scenes video of him seductively dipping Sweeney, the promo spot that was parodied by Emma Stone and Nathan Fielder within hours of launch. And then of course, there’s the affair. Sorry, sorry, alleged affair. Without wading too deep into internet hearsay, there were rumours that the actors broke up with their respective partners and got together (both of them have denied this). If, as I suspect, the ‘are they a real couple?’ speculation was a studio-mandated ruse to whip up interest in the film, congratulations to the publicist who suggested it. Not only is this a tried-and-true, sex-scandal marketing strategy, it also plays directly into the key theme of Anyone But You: acting.
Anyone But You (2023)
When we meet law intern Bea (Sweeney) and Goldman Sachs banker Ben (Powell) – named after the warring lovers of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing (1598) – they pretend to be married so she can use the customer bathroom in a coffee shop. From there, it’s a glossy, getting-to-know-each-other montage, where the pair wander starry-eyed through a could-be-anywhere city as a vocalist shoo-bops away on the soundtrack. Day turns to night, and their date has gone well enough that, back in Ben’s bachelor pad, he and Bea are spooning – fully clothed, I might add – on the sofa. The following morning, she slips away without saying goodbye, which irks Ben; she instantly regrets leaving and returns to his apartment, only to overhear Ben criticising her to a friend (Gata). Months pass and resentments fester until, of all the destination weddings in all the towns in all the world, she walks into his, and Bea and Ben are roped into forced proximity at the Sydney nuptials of her sister (Hadley Robinson) and his friend (Alexandra Shipp). To ease the awkwardness of their feud for the other guests, these sworn enemies pretend to be a couple (as you simply must after bickering with someone in a rom-com).
Anyone But You (2023)
The opening minutes of Anyone But You are stuffed with enormous amounts of plot – it is revealed Bea is engaged, then has broken off said engagement, before you can say ‘g’day mate’. The film is also built on the incredibly silly notion that these perfect-looking people would hold a two-year grudge over what is a very minor social infraction (alternative title for the film: One Thing I Hate About You). The story is as flimsy as a boarding pass to Sydney – there are tropes layered upon tropes, with a few extra tropes thrown in for good measure. Bea is traffic-stoppingly beautiful… but don’t be intimidated by her because she’s also a massive klutz! A boomer dad makes sexist comments… but it’s all good because he’s ridiculed for it by the millennials! It even prominently features a song by Natasha Bedingfield, the jaunty voice of the rom-com for over a decade whose ‘Pocketful of Sunshine’ was a centrepiece in Anyone But You director Will Gluck’s 2010 classic Easy A. Did I care? Nope. I don’t need much more from these sorts of films than vague narrative coherence, chemistry between the leads and memorable set pieces, all of which Anyone But You has.
We are starved of the skin-prickling connections between actors that used to power such movies. Ours is a world where a streaming rom-com can get away with CGI-ing the final, triumphant kiss so the on-screen couple never have to lock lips. There’s more eroticism in Glen Powell brushing a smudge of butter off the corner of Sydney Sweeney’s mouth than has been seen in any studio romantic comedy in the past five years. Anyone But You even has a sex scene (!), which is honestly remarkable given how puritanical mainstream American movies have become of late. However, it’s the smaller moments of physical touch that sell it, including the sequence – savvily included in the trailer – where a cream-suited Powell lifts Sweeney, in her steel-blue silk gown, out of a 4x4 and places her delicately on the ground as the balmy Australia breeze ruffles her hair (it’s essentially the Noah Centineo pocket spin of 2023). Verbally, too, the rhythm to the actors’ screwball-esque patter is delightful: the squabbling and the spatting, the prying and the needling. They bring a fieriness to Ben and Bea’s loathing that lubricates the journey from hate to love – the line that separates the two being so thin, and all.
Anyone But You (2023)
The film does deliver on Powell’s promise of R-rated kicks with its funny, though increasingly ludicrous, escapades. Let the record state that no woman’s reaction to seeing a fire is to strip off her dress and use it to bat out the flames, as one character does in Anyone But You. Powell, similarly, is itching to get his kit off. He worked hard for that bod, and by god he’s going to let you admire the glutes of his labour. His panicked run-in with a tarantula, which involves further nudity, naturally, is a perfectly executed feat of slapstick comedy that showcases the actor’s goofy side, usually buried under fuckboi snark (see Maverick and Set It Up [2018]). He makes it look easy: exactly what you want from a sunny, Pinterest board-ready rom-com. The seams do show in Sweeney’s performance, however, primarily because her persona – put together, poised, confident, aloof – does not fit with Bea’s sloppy clumsiness in the slightest. She’s much more convincing at withering repartee than ditzy kookiness.
Anyone But You (2023)
Another less successful element of Anyone But You is Gluck’s attempt to recapture the magic of those covert, teen-pleasing Shakespeare adaptations of yesteryear (She’s The Man [2006], 10 Things I Hate About You [1999], etc.) by grafting quotes from Much Ado About Nothing onto props and set design – book covers, signposts, graffiti… It never quite lands. The director’s threading of classic literature into the text of a movie worked a treat in Easy A, which borrows from The Scarlet Letter (1850), but here his efforts are terribly contrived. Beyond the ‘you geddit?’ Shakespeare Easter eggs, Anyone But You groans under the weight of references to several (better) movies. It’s fun to hear the word Titanic used as a verb, but I do wish the film had the courage to differentiate itself from the romances that came before. The sense memory of recognition is a placeholder for genuine innovation.
But that’s OK. A movie diet can, and should, encompass all different food groups. Sometimes you want a film that’s as comforting as a grilled-cheese sandwich, which Anyone But You unmistakably is. ‘Stupid, but fun,’ says Bea after an eventful excursion. ‘That’s the best kind,’ Ben cheekily replies. This is the film’s mission statement. So if you’re craving a splashy, theatrical rom-com this Christmas, look no further than this cosily hokey, always sweet, offering.
WATCH ANYONE BUT YOU IN CINEMAS
