Women around America rushed to the movies this Valentine’s Day to embrace the single life with the new comedy “How to Be Single.”
The film stars “Fifty Shades of Grey” Dakota Johnson as Alice, who has just moved to New York after breaking up with her college boyfriend, Josh (Nicholas Braun). Alice struggles to live the single life with the help of her sister Meg (Leslie Mann) and co-worker Robin (Rebel Wilson).
The romantic comedy had a few good jokes but overall, there were not as many laughs as anticipated from the trailers. The main plot of Alice’s love life became boring after the first hour, and the subplots did not help.
Throughout the film, we have Lucy (Alison Brie), a desperate online-dater who catches the attention of emotionally detached bartender Tom (Anders Holm). Her story does not really connect to the rest of the movie and just barely makes a connection when Tom and Alice become friends.
A good addition to the story was Meg’s decision to become a single mother through a sperm donor. She then runs into love without even looking for it, finding Ken (Jake Lacey), a co-worker of Alice’s.
One of the biggest disappointments was the writing of Rebel Wilson’s character. Wilson has proved that she is a very funny actress, but her character was dumbed down and mostly served as background noise.
This movie comes in a long line of films about women realizing that being single can be better than jumping through several failed relationships. However, “How to Be Single” had some deeper meanings that almost seemed out of place in the romantic comedy genre.
It was refreshing to see the plot pan out in a way most audience members were not expecting. These deeper meanings came in handy when the plot was slacking and made the overall product worth sitting through.
“How to Be Single” is in theaters now.
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