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Pat Benatar once said that love is a battlefield. And in the middle of that battle, there are a bunch of people who just don’t know how to use their weapons—who end up getting shot down time and time again.
Andie Anderson (Kate Hudson), a women’s mag “how-to” girl, works with a highly inept soldier. Michelle (Kathryn Hahn) clings and obsesses, only to find herself sobbing by the phone when he stops returning her calls.
When Michelle’s latest failure comes up at a staff meeting, their boss, Lana (Bebe Neuwirth), decides to use Michelle’s bad luck for the magazine’s gain. Eager to impress Lana, Andie sets out to meet a guy and do everything in her power to scare him away in ten days.
Meanwhile, ad guy Ben Barry (Matthew McConaughey) is trying to move from beer and athletic gear campaigns to a big new client: diamonds. He argues that it’s easy to get a woman to fall in love—with a diamond necklace or with a person—so his boss decides that if Ben can make a pre-selected woman fall in love with him in the ten days before the client’s big release party, he’ll get the campaign. His co-workers choose Andie—since they just happen to know that she’s about to put a man through ten days of misery.
And the results are painfully hilarious. Hudson is frighteningly good as Psycho Andie, who cries, whines, obsesses, and clings her way through her new relationship with Ben. She fills his apartment with lace and teddy bears and drags him off to chick flick marathons. And there’s nothing the poor guy can do about it—because his coworkers are depending on him to put up with it and win the bet.
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is funny because, at some point, all of us have known someone like Psycho Andie. Or we’ve dated someone like her. Or we’ve been a teensy little bit like her ourselves (in younger, less mature days, of course). And as you watch, you’ll hear your friend’s voice leaving that tenth message on Ben’s answering machine. Or you’ll see your ex showing up in the middle of poker night with the guys. So while parts of it might be painful to watch, it’s also absolutely hilarious—because it’s so wickedly perceptive.
And the same time, Hudson and McConaughey have such spectacular chemistry that—despite all the craziness and the bets, and even though Andie’s psycho and Ben’s a player—you can’t help but love them. They’re absolutely electrifying together (which makes the 2008 bomb, Fool’s Gold all the more perplexing). And that makes the last 20 minutes or so of the movie excruciating—not just because it’s painfully predictable (in that formulaic chick flick way) but because you’ll actually hate seeing them apart.
Despite the film’s somewhat frustrating end, though, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is still an entertaining—and educational—film. See it with the girls. Or, if you’re a guy, see it with your girlfriend—as a subtle reminder of what never, ever to do.
Blu-ray Review:
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is such a lovable comedy that you don’t really need special features to make it a worthwhile purchase—but the Blu-ray release comes with a few extras anyway. The disc includes a commentary with director Donald Petrie, five deleted scenes, a Keith Urban music video, and Why the Sexes Battle, a strange socio-psychological analysis of the battle of the sexes.
The best features on the disc, though, are the two that feature interviews with Jeannie Long and Michele Alexander, the authors of the humor book on which the movie was based. How to Make a Movie in 2 Years is a pretty traditional making-of feature, with the filmmakers (especially the female ones) discussing the filmmaking (and book-writing) process. And Girls Night Out is an entertaining little featurette, in which Long and Alexander discuss the silly things that girls do when they’re in a relationship.
Neither feature is a must-see, but Girls Night Out makes a great conversation starter—especially if you’re watching the movie with your girl friends.
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