"Anyone but You" review

Surely a healthy theatergoing culture depends on attractive people banging about.

Sydney Sweeney is Bea, Glen Powell is Ben. She’s an aimless law student. He’s a finance guy with a secret sadness. In the breezy Anyone but You, though, careers and backstories matter less than bods. “You have, like, a ten-pack,” she tells him. “You’re zero feet tall,” he tells her. One person calls Bea “the plum-chested one with the sad eyes.” Another declares that Ben’s “made out of cobblestones.” They attend a wedding in Australia, so there are swimsuits, athleisure hikes, outdoor showers, breasts, butts, a brandished dickhole, generalized yoga tans. Here’s a romance where most characters are trying to parent-trap the leads into loveless sex. “Fuck it, let’s do it,” Ben tells Bea. Shakespeare said it better, but Shakespeare never did cardio.

It's a surprise hit for a reason. Some kind of miracle to make a decent comedy with zero action, especially when the stars are a TV breakout with a minimum bigscreen record and one of the bowling pins Top Gun: Maverick rolled Tom Cruise through. Sun-dappled New South Wales makes good winter counterprogramming, like how Sports Illustrated used to release the Swimsuit Edition in February. Director Will Gluck made the sacred Easy A before disappearing into Peter Rabbits. Co-writing with Ilana Wolpert, he’s rediscovering something. Anyone But You is a solid R-rated romcom where people say (and do) “Fuck.” Even when it loses steam, you remember when it was hot.

Powell looks great in a tuxedo and nothing. But this two-hander is Sweeney’s showcase, not just because she’s got the executive producer credit. Sad eyes? I don’t know. The HBO regular usually comes off a little over it, or loudly bored in a lost downtown-indie way. It’s a shock to see her get such a frantic farcical introduction when, in the first scene, Bea races into a snazz Chicago café begging for the bathroom key. Ben’s the dashing stranger who pretends they’re married so she can use the customer-only toilet. When Bea sprays water on her crotch, she straddles the hand blower to dry her pants off. You’re getting a sense for the scatterbomb laugh approach. These two playact love until it’s real: Classic screwball. But there will be body embarrassment, hair on fire, a spider in an asscrack.

First, they have a perfect day and night. They wake up together, clothed, spooning. A ridiculous misunderstanding spoils the meet-cute into a love-hate. They never see each other again, until Ben’s friend Claudia (Alexandra Shipp) gets engaged to Bea’s sister Halle (Hadley Robinson). The destination wedding requires everyone to stay in the boffo beach house owned by Claudia’s mom and stepdad (Michelle Hurd and Bryan Brown). Exes lurk. Bea’s parents (Dermot Mulroney and Rachel Griffiths) invite her childhood sweetheart Jonathan (Darren Barnet). Claudia’s cousin Margaret (Charlee Fraser) is Ben’s One That Got Away. The brides worry Bea and Ben will spoil their big day with sheer loathing. The family tries fooling them into a hook-up. Wise to their tricks, Bea convinces Ben to pretend they’re falling for each other.

Sweeney and Powell spark whenever Ben and Bea perform. And the ensuing spiral of faked counterplot romance with constant overhead information is inspired, explicitly, by Much Ado About Nothing. I’m not scholarly enough to know which Shakespearean analogue GaTa is playing, but as Claudia’s brother, the Dave rapper makes a little a lot. “I don’t see faces,” he swears, “I just see souls.” I laughed when he talked to a koala, damn me, and it sounds like good improv when he calls Bea “Polly Pocket.” He’s plugged into Best Friendship, with no obvious job or life beyond commentary. It risks stereotype, but he’s the standout on a down-for-anything cast. Everyone’s a good hang, which is an accomplishment, because wedding-getaway comedies lean god-awful. Think Made of Honor, or Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. Even the good ones can feel like museum pieces now. Anyone but You’s particular nuptials – two brides saging chakras, generations passing joints, superyachting – make something like My Best Friend’s Wedding seem positively Edwardian.

That delightful Julia Roberts vehicle came out a whole Sydney Sweeney ago. The concept was two friends making a pact to get hitched at the old age of, Jesus Christ, they were 28? Most romcoms trail dating reality by a couple epochs. (Gluck’s own Friends with Benefits was one of two 2011 movies about people who, whoa, fornicate when, whoa, they’re not even in love.) The most topical thing about Anyone but You is the running joke about the age gap between Bea and Ben, a gag that feels more defensive than character-driven. Shocking stuff, thirtysomethings dating twentysomethings, but the film loses track of how truly different these two are. He turns left on the plane towards Business Class, she goes right to steerage. He worked at Goldman, she’s ditching law school. Rich contrasts their chemistry should play up, but removing them to luxe Australia winds up deleting their particularity. It doesn’t help their exes are total zeroes, though the lack of romantic threat arguably enhances the overall vacation quality.

“This is so cringe,” Ben says, during one of their lovey-dovey performances. “So is saying cringe, old man,” Bea responds. Even discussing cringe’s cringe is cringe, but I think the emergent sensation of Anyone but You depends on how it builds embeds 2020s culture-stuff in a sturdy 400-year-old comedy blueprint. Will its success inspire imitators? We’re overdue for a new Shakespeare trend. The gender-bending Twelfth Night seems built for fluid times. And no one would argue against The Taming of the Fuckboy.