March 28, 2024

BY KANDACE GALLANT
kghowtobesingle

How To Be Single recently hit the movie theatres and instantly entertained its viewers. On its opening weekend it made $18.7 million. Since then it has grossed over $42 million. Hilarious, quirky, awkward and, of course, featuring the charming star Rebel Wilson, this movie was bound to be a hit.

Dakota Johnson, Leslie Mann and Alison Brie also star in this comedy that teaches people it’s OK to just be single and let loose sometimes. Johnson’s character, and main character of the story, Alice, takes a break from her college boyfriend after graduating to “find herself.” She moves to the heart of New York to live with her sister Meg, played by Mann, and becomes friends with the buoyant and funny Robin, played by Wilson. Their friendship blossoms quickly into what Alice realizes, is something that she’s not quite used too. Robin lives life freely. She doesn’t care what people think, she doesn’t let others make choices for her and she’s the girl everyone wants to invite to their parties. And more importantly, she knows who she is. Alice struggles to find herself and Robin makes it clear that she needs to find out who she is, because once she does, her life will be so much easier. But as Alice tries living like her, it proves to be harder than she thought. She’s not used to not being in a relationship or not having her boyfriend to rely on. Meg tries to teach her it’s OK to be single too, although she secretly wishes for a long-term boyfriend and children because she thinks she’s getting old.

Brie’s character, Lucy, is quite the opposite of these party girls. Her wish is to find her match. The One. Her one true soul mate. Being single isn’t an option for a girl in New York who wants to settle down and get married and have children all within the next few years. She meets guy after guy at a local bar, but not only does she not find her match … she realizes there just isn’t a man out there for her. Until, of course, she has a mental breakdown at her work and the guy watching her finds it hilarious and then they gaze into each other’s eyes and fall in love and get married. A bit cliché, but entertaining all the same. Her character was witty and fun to watch. Her attitude, though things didn’t quite go as she planned, was positive and her smile was contagious.

Throughout the movie, Alice has a hard time adjusting to her new life and soon regrets breaking up with her college lover. When she tries to get back with him, he announces that he has found someone else and they are engaged. Alice is heartbroken and not sure how to take the news, so Robin is there for her, showing her that a night out on the town can fix any problem. It doesn’t fix her problems … It makes them worse. Alice is becoming a girl who she never thought she’d become. She isn’t where she wants to be or who she wants to be. All she wants to do is follow her life-long dream of trekking through the Grand Canyon at night so she can watch the sun come up over the beautiful horizon. She plans a trip out of the blue and finally realizes this is what she was meant to do. She doesn’t need men in her life to keep her happy all the time.

Her sister Meg settles down with a man she meets and ends up having a baby (from artificial insemination, not by him), and they live happily ever after. Her story was definitely funny to watch, especially her reaction when she finds out a guy actually loves her and wants to help her raise a baby that isn’t even his. He’s very funny and has a hard time taking things seriously and he likes to drive Meg crazy, but that’s what keeps the audience laughing.

The crowd was definitely entertained the whole way through the movie and cheering on the main characters to find their happy endings. It was hard not to rate it a 9/10. On IMDb, the international movie database, it is rated a 6.4/10. Not quite the greatest rating, but not the worst. The main characters couldn’t have been played by anyone else. Rebel Wilson and Leslie Mann never fail to make people laugh and Dakota Johnson definitely stepped out of her comfort zone to play a sarcastic and awkward character. Stepping away from her serious and romantic roles, she did a great job and it’ll be interesting to see what other comedy roles she takes on in the future.

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