How to Be Single is Bridesmaids before the proposal.
Starring Rebel Wilson, Dakota Johnson, Leslie Mann, and Alison Brie, the story revolves around these women as they navigate the dating scene. While none of them have found the man of their dreams at the beginning of the film, they all are pursuing a desire to fill the hole in their hearts and lives by whatever means possible. Of course, this pursuit is not without its hijinks… or pitfalls.
While none of the characters is super lovable, their combination does provide us with a humorous (and often, realistic) take on what it means to look and feel like you are the remaining singles in a crowd of married (or at least, coupled) people. Alice (Johnson) breaks off her relationship with Josh (Nicholas Braun) to play the field and make sure she loves him, never intending to not go back; Lucy (Brie) wants to sleep her way through the field to finding The One. [The older inclusion, Mann’s Meg, gets artificially inseminated because she thinks she’s destined for singularity, then meets Ken (Jake Lacy), a younger man who treats her like the queen.
While I regularly find these movies funny, I found myself dreading what I predicted would be a “we’re single until we’re not, thank goodness.” Instead, the moral of the story seems to call for everyone to find what they need, not a cookie cutter mashup that is one size fits all. For the sake of some mystery, I won’t spoil that here, but I found the movie to be more emotionally powerful because the story wasn’t cutely wrapped up.
Fans digging Wilson, or films like this, will enjoy the way that the special features highlight Wilson’s personality, the humor that made for the witty banter, and the way that the story highlights the ‘pros and cons’ of being single. But, of course, in a film like this, the best special feature is probably the gag reel!
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