Anyone But You: Movie Review

Cast: Sydney Sweeney, Glen Powell, Rachel Griffiths, Alexandra Shipp, Dermot Mulroney, Bryan Brown, Michelle Hurd, GaTa
Director: Will Gluck

Less a romantic comedy and more an extended advert for Sydney's Opera House, director Will Gluck's Anyone But You is the kind of romcom they don't make anymore - and for good reason.

Euphoria star Sweeney plays accident prone Bea who finds her life turned upside down after an amazing first date scored by chance with Ben (Top Gun: Maverick's Powell). Six months later, the pair find themselves thrust back into each other's orbit at Bea's sister's wedding and forced to appear to be a couple.

It may have similar tones and intentions to one of Shakespeare's finest, but Anyone But You won't be remembered as a classic in years to come.

It's no real fault of the leading performers who debase themselves as much as the script requires them to do so - but more a problem of a film that goes for broad OTT comedy where nobody really acts like real people do. But then Gluck tries to inject human moments into the film which feel tonally at odds with proceedings.

It doesn't help that the film deals too much in broad strokes to ever feel like there are any real stakes throughout. An appalling stereotype of an Aussie bloke is also deployed, which feels at diametrically at odds with the extended sequences of obvious tourism carried out on behalf of the Sydney Opera House - it almost feels like Anyone But You doesn't know what it wants to be - or has any courage to try and find out.

Powell deploys the same kind of raffish charm and chiseled abs as he used in Top Gun: Maverick and Sweeney, hilariously described at one point as "the plump chested one with the sad eyes", slots neatly into her role as klutz lost career girl who doesn't know how to do anything but disappoint her family - it's all depressing low-hanging fruit material that's beneath the actors. While they have a degree of chemistry, the script doesn't play to their strengths, preferring to hold back when it should be braver. Much like the George Clooney/ Julia Roberts' stinker Ticket to Paradise, this is a film that settles for so little.

The end result is that Anyone But You is just pointlessly and endlessly bland - it could have had some real sparkle, and has moments that the promise bubbles to the surface.

But ultimately, despite the apparent star-wattage of its leads, thanks to lazy scripting, appalling stereotyping and an inherent desire to play it boringly safe, Anyone But You puts the nail in the coffin of 2023's depressingly average cinematic year.