How to Be Single (2016)

Starring: Dakota Johnson, Rebel Wilson, Leslie Mann, Alison Brie, Anders Holm, Damon Wayans Jr., Nicholas Braun, Jake Lacy, Jason Mantzoukas, and Colin Jost
Grade: C+

Jason Mantzoukas kills every supporting role he’s in. That dude is hilarious.

Summary

Through narration from Alice Kepley (Johnson) to open the film, we talk about the basics of being single. First, there’s the right way to be single, as we see Robin (Wilson) partying it up at the club. Then, there’s the wrong way to be single, as we see a guy approach Lucy (Brie) at a café and her already talking about how she wants to get married 18 months after meeting “the right guy”. As Alice continues to talk about the subject, we see a few more of our supporting characters like womanizer Tom (Holm) and the exhausted nurse and Alice’s sister Meg (Mann). Alice questions why we tell our stories through relationships but after asking this, we see this is how her story begins. In the college dorms after her shower, Alice’s towel falls in the hallway when she tries to stop herself from dropping her bathroom stuff. As she stands there naked and unable to open her door because of the stuff she’s carrying, Josh (Braun) is nice enough to cover her with his towel. He didn’t think this through however because he became the naked one in the hallway. This was how the two met and started their relationship.

Four years later, now college graduate Alice convinces Josh they need to take a break to see how they fair alone. She doesn’t want to end things with Josh, she has just realized now that she hasn’t experienced life as a single person and wants to do things she’s always wanted to do before she settles down. Josh doesn’t want to but accepts the fact that her mind is made up. Now, she’s off to New York City. Already in NYC, Lucy is in her apartment. As she tries to steal the Wi-Fi from Tom’s bar under her place, she accidentally drops her laptop out her window. Robin wakes up in some guy’s apartment following a drunken night and doesn’t even realize it’s not her apartment after threatening the guy at knife point. We then see Meg at work. She’s an OB/GYN who surprisingly doesn’t have any interest in having kids because of her rather strong feelings on society pressuring the matter on women and how it isn’t fair to career-driven women.

Alice, now officially the new paralegal at her firm, shows up and is introduced to Robin. As you would imagine, Robin is the last person you’d expect to work at a law firm. Following the tour around the office that she gives Alice, she establishes herself as a free spirit partier and careless worker. Elsewhere, Lucy decides to take her laptop to Tom’s bar to use his Wi-Fi outright. By doing so, Tom strikes up a conversation with her, and they discuss her problems with men and how picky she is. For the record, she’s on ten different dating apps and is very specific in her tastes. Following work, Robin takes Alice out for a night on the town. At the same time, Lucy meets a guy at Tom’s bar for a date, but it turns out the man is a sexual fiend whose list of goals in life only include sexual things. Seeing Lucy’s in trouble, Tom gives her the keys to his office, so she can lock herself in there and escape the dude. Robin takes Alice to Tom’s bar to flirt with some guys for free drinks, but she fails miserably. Privately, Lucy wonders what she did wrong, but Tom argues that the guy probably told her what he was all about. She just heard what she wanted to hear. For an example, Tom breaks it off with one of his hookups in front of Lucy in the guise of him caring for her and not wanting to see her get hurt, and she practically thanks him. Insisting Alice needs sex with a stranger, Robin introduces her to Tom and tells him she needs it. As they start drinking, Alice makes out with Tom. The random hookup girl even sees this and slaps Tom, but it doesn’t affect anything after she leaves.

The next morning, Meg wakes up Alice who’s staying on Meg’s couch for the time being. Meg is startled to see Robin spent the night too, as she wakes up behind the couch to greet her. After Meg leaves, they see there’s also a guy there that Robin had sex with. Alice and Robin leave and realize they have to get to work in 30 minutes, but they have to cure their hangovers and look presentable first. So, Robin takes Alice through her routine of getting Pedialyte, clothes, and their hair and makeup done before work. They get it all done and finally show up, only to be told they were three-and-a-half hours late. At the hospital, Meg watches over a baby when the mother goes to the bathroom, and she’s not too comfortable with it at first. She continues to put on her act of not wanting a child but seeing the cute little baby smile and react to what she says starts to make her feel differently on her stance. After Alice gets a text from Tom and Robin warns her not to respond too quickly, so she doesn’t sound too needy and incapable of a hookup, the two meet up later anyway for a hookup. She realizes she doesn’t know how to stay single, so Tom offers his advice as he’s the king of this sort of thing. He says the trick is to get them to leave you and not the other way around, showing her how he’s rigged his apartment to force a woman in this direction (no food in the fridge, no cups for water, and he cut his own water so they can’t drink from the tap). Even though she looks at him like a douche, she respects his honesty and ingenuity.

Honestly, so do I.

Once she leaves, she sets up a breakfast meetup with Josh to tell her she’s done with her “being single” experiment. However, he tells her he’s been seeing someone since their time apart. She offers to wait but he’s not into it, letting her know how it was bullshit for her to put them on a break in the first place when he was still in love with her. Alice goes and confides in Meg and Robin at a park. Meg tells her to go to an alumni event because it may be easier to meet someone in a similar career field, but Alice offends her by saying she doesn’t want her life to revolve around her career like it does her. At Tom’s bar, Lucy is approached by an old friend and her bachelorette party. They ask Lucy about her relationship status, but she has to admit she doesn’t have anyone at the moment, looking like a loser as she does it. Seeing a friend in need, Tom swoops in and kisses her, acting like her boyfriend to save the day. After making fun of the institution of marriage, he leaves with her. Following this, he talks with Lucy after and she thanks him for it, kissing him on the cheek. Once she leaves, he can’t help but smirk. Back at Meg’s place, Alice gets home and realizing she can’t unclip the back of her dress, she apologizes to Meg. Meg accepts and comes over to her to tell her of a new plan of having a child via sperm donor. As they hug, she tells Alice she needs to move out by Friday because the co-op board found out she was living there because they saw Robin go down the trash chute naked on the security camera footage.

Following Alice moving into a new apartment and being much more open to new beginnings and possibilities, she hangs with Meg at the hospital to see if Meg is pregnant. Unfortunately, it’s not meant to be just yet. Later that night, Josh makes a surprise visit to see Alice and drops off all her old stuff because his new girlfriend Michelle is moving in. This startles her because she didn’t realize things were moving this fast for him. As the conversation gets a bit awkward because of her reactions, he interrupts once he sees her television is stuck in Spanish mode. She admits she doesn’t know how to fix it, but Josh fixes it in seconds. Seeing this minor action, she breaks down and hugs him, realizing she still wants and needs him in her life. Sadly, Josh has moved on, and she’s forced to accept it once he leaves her in the emotional state that she’s in. Well, it’s time. Alice is now in a new stage in her life. She’s single with no strings attached, with her own place in New York. Though she will continue to consider adding men to her life, the next step is her trying to grow as a person and trying to become a better version of herself. At the same time, she’ll find out whether staying single is truly worth it.

My Thoughts:

Going along with the new era of female-led comedies like Bad Moms and Bridesmaids, How to Be Single is another film from the woman’s perspective. Only this time, the goal is to destigmatize the “negative” aspects of the single life and what it means. Ultimately, it’s a cheery movie, but the sum of its parts is uneven.

Dakota Johnson does another wonderful job as Alice, the innocent college graduate trying to find her place in the world. She’s in a loving relationship, but she’s finally come to the realization she’s never been by herself. She went from living with her parents, to living in the dorms, to living with Josh. When you take a break in a relationship, it’s never a good sign. Usually, we automatically assume one of the partners wants to try dating or having sex with someone else. Truthfully, Alice has innocent intentions with her “break”. Before she meets Robin, it’s not even about sex. She just wants to try new activities and start her career with nothing else to think about. It’s refreshing, and with an upbeat and modern pop soundtrack, her entering New York to experience this new outlook on life feels very positive and uplifting to start the story. Naturally, the story inevitably turns into her having sex with randoms, but this is part of the single life. The story has to get there somehow.

The real positives coming from How to Be Single is its ability to take a look at eight-to-ten different viewpoints and really uncork how unique everyone’s situations and stances on relationships and being single can be. Each character is very different too. They seem stereotypical at first, but there are more to them than what we initially think, with the exception of Robin. Because of the characters’ paths crossing here and there, they all look at having a man or woman in their lives in very contrasting ways, but their initial thoughts on the matter all evolve for the better because of their experiences with each other. Alice is open to a relationship but wants to learn how to be single, Meg doesn’t want a relationship because she’s too focused on her job but complicates things by having a child with a sperm donor, Lucy wants a relationship badly, David wants a relationship but can’t get past his deceased wife, and Tom and Robin prefer the constant revolving door of multiple sexual partners. However, Tom starts realizing his own feelings are starting to change after befriending Lucy. All these interweaving stories are interesting because of the characters and the great performances from the cast, but I can’t say any of them come to satisfying conclusions.

Should I give the movie points for realism?

Not everyone has a happy ending. You don’t always get the person you want and sometimes, you end up single again. Even though I wasn’t too happy with how all the storylines turned out, it’s a positive in a way because it shows us how not everything turns out the way you want it to. It goes back to what Ken says to Meg, saying how badly she wants to control everything in her life, but she can’t. Life doesn’t work that way. Sure, you may have a general plan you want to follow, but life circumstances can (and will) change everything. Alice wanted to get back with Josh, but he moved on, forcing her to move on. Meg wanted a baby with no man to deal with, but she ended up falling in love when she didn’t want to. I don’t want to give up the ending to each character’s story, but you see my point. How to Be Single is showing us how you can’t plan everything. Sometimes you have to go with the flow, or even your gut feeling, and live life. Being single isn’t just not having someone to be with. It’s experiencing the rest of life outside of a relationship. Putting things into algorithms and forcing the issue isn’t going to get you anywhere. Sometimes, you meet someone spontaneously like Lucy flipping out on those kids during a story time session. Sometimes, you fall for your significant other no matter your “type”.

It’s a thoughtful and inspiring message, and it hits in some ways. However, in other ways, it hurts the characters and how things turned out as a whole. So, even though we walk away from this movie in a good mood, and with a good grasp of the themes explored, we can’t help but feel a bit unfulfilled.

I also liked the minor media critique as well. Realistically, you may not even need a “single” phase in your life if you’re in a loving relationship. It’s not necessary. Josh even says it himself, saying he didn’t need an “experiment” to know how much he loved Alice. As she stares at him teary-eyed, realizing she fucked up, you can’t help but see how flawed our main character is because of his point. Meg notes Alice was influenced by Bridget Jones’s Diary and Sex and the City, and she makes a great point. Though both were about being single, the characters were always going after men or relationships. It’s all bullshit and Alice fell for it, thinking her positive relationship needed to end, so she could experience something movie-like when she didn’t necessarily need to. Once again, Alice’s flawed perspective is challenged, and we can’t help but think Meg has a point. Then again, we do look at movies and television shows in different ways depending on our age and personal situations, and it can be a major influence on how we think. Because of this, it is accurate to the character she’s playing. In a way, it’s showcasing how her character grows up.

Everyone involved in this production is enjoyable to watch. As I said before, Dakota Johnson was great as the lead of this charming cast. She’s obviously very pretty, but she has this awkwardness in her personality, making it believable as to why she’s not great in certain social situations, as well as falling for men too easily. Rebel Wilson does a great job as the loud and outgoing supporting character helping the lead let loose, a role she has down to a science at this point. They have great onscreen chemistry and a very loving friendship because of it. They need each other and even though they go through the inevitable moment in the film where they piss each other off with angry facts hurled towards one another (where we see Johnson’s spot-on impression of Wilson and her making fun of her entire onscreen persona), you can see why they need each other. Leslie Mann plays the tough-minded older sister who is very much independent and refusing to conform to a usual woman’s standards. Usually, she plays a shrew of a wife (admittedly, she’s pretty good at it), so it was nice to see her playing a level-headed, likable, career-driven woman who offers advice. Her subplot stole the show at some points too. When Alice’s story started to shift back and forth as much as her mind, Meg’s story progressed further and further and became highly entertaining because of her fun and natural chemistry with the very sweet Ken, played by an underrated Jake Lacy. Despite the decent age difference between the two, I really felt the love stemming from Ken and how much he cared for this overworked woman. He’s exactly the man she needs and is understanding to her every issue.

Since she doesn’t want it to fail like she assumes it will, she continually pushes him away, despite the obvious sparks between the two. After experiencing so much failure before in past relationships, she’s had a pessimistic outlook on love and always assumes the worst. You can’t help but relate to her and love her for it, even though you’re yelling at the screen for her to give in.

The two have so many scenes where they go back and forth on this argument, but each scene revolving around it becomes more and more entertaining because of the writing and likability of the actors. Seeing Ken change her frame of mind was a major bright spot, as was virtually all of the dialogue between them. One of the best parts comes when she finally admits it, saying “I could do this on my own…but I don’t want to”. God, I love that line. Tom, played by a believable Anders Holm, was a character we like a lot more than we thought we would, and his eventual interest in Lucy made me rethink my own problems with the “too much” personality she was introduced with. Again, this was one of those diverting storylines that attracted my interest but ended up failing me in the end because of how things turned out. I felt like this was a misfire, especially the final scene they share together. It turns into a funny ass moment, but the back-and-forth with Tom and Lucy was handled wrong.

(**SPOILERS**) Clearly, it was to push that she still doesn’t want the same things as Tom, but the scenes before and after this show this isn’t true. He was willing to change for her. I wanted Tom to get a better ending from it. It hurt even more when we see him give up on his old ways entirely, showing how much of an effect Lucy had on him and forever will. He actually did want love and didn’t realize it, showing us the perfect example of Alice’s line, “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 to be with somebody great?”. Alice is right and this can happen, but the realism of the outcome irked me. Sure, it would’ve been predictable had Tom and Lucy ended up together, but I would’ve liked it a lot more.

*shrugs*

Death is a tough subject to fit into a romantic comedy, but it does fit the theme of trying to look through the perspectives of many different people on relationships. With that being said, the whole thing with David (Wayans Jr.) got weird and uncomfortable in a hurry. The angle with him stuck out of the movie’s story like a sore thumb, coming off as super aggressive and unnecessary. I understand part of his character’s thing is how he’s not good about talking about the subject, but it was very unsettling. Inserting Alice into it was a weird detour from the main story, and it only happened to give his character the closure he needed to move on from his wife. The emotional scene to conclude his arc is handled well, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the awkwardness from earlier. On a minor note, we are introduced to the concept of “The Drink Number”, a combined number of drinks it would take for two friends to hookup. It’s a funny concept, but the big scene where we see it happen is with Alice and Tom. At this point though, they’ve already had sex. I guess it would’ve been a big moment in the movie had they not already slept together, but they did. Why does it matter now? Who cares? The concept worked, but it’s like they weren’t paying attention to their own screenplay and decided to throw in the payoff for the joke way too late into the film.

How to Be Single is a very modern take on relationships, moving on, being single, and experiencing life all on your own. I liked the idea of figuring out who you are and what you want out of life first being the parting message, as we see all the different sides of this “being single” coin and how things turned out. It’s nice, but I just don’t think the idea is impactful as the movie suggests it is. As I mentioned before, the whole love affair with being single and experiencing single life being bullshit is brought up by Meg, one of the most important characters in the film. Even her “I don’t need a man” attitude changes while Alice ends up flipping to Meg’s old attitude. How to Be Single explores interesting perspectives on the topic but doesn’t seem to have an answer for any of them, clinging to an open-ended ending that makes the final product seem unrefined rather than inspiring. It was a positive thing at first because it’s a refreshing and realistic outlook on the topic, but the movie still needed to be a bit more definitive on the point of it all by the time the credits roll. Even the narration in the ending seemed too wonderous and unsure of the conclusion. None of the characters seemed to be right or wrong. They all just change their opinions on the matter. Though this may be true to life, it comes off as somewhat incomplete.

Fun Fact: Drew Barrymore was initially attached to direct. Dan Stevens was cast at one point but had to drop out after scheduling conflicts with the Beauty and the Beast remake.