Anyone But You: raunchier than your average rom-com
You’ll bet against the two hotties, Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell, reigniting their passion at a destination wedding.
The Hollywood romantic comedy Anyone But You is a love letter to two Sydneys: the city, where it was filmed, and the star, Sydney Sweeney, who is best known for the ongoing television series Euphoria.
It’s directed by American filmmaker Will Gluck, who became enamoured with the harbour city while filming Peter Rabbit (2018) there and is loosely based on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.
What there is much ado about is the erotic appeal of Sweeney and her co-star Glen Powell. The poster shows them on a beach, close to a kiss, her index finger almost touching his six-pack. On screen they have chemistry and sex sells.
In the film itself, however, it’s fake news. The set-up is two people from Boston, Bea and Ben (as in Beatrice and Benedick from Much Ado), who meet, have the hots for each other, have a misunderstanding, hate each other and vow never to meet again.
Until, that is, they are invited to a “destination wedding’’ in Sydney. The betrothed are Halle (Hadley Robinson), who is Bea’s sister, and Claudia (Alexandra Shipp), sister of Ben’s best friend. The two families have Australian connections.
Bea is a law student and Ben is a financier. Worried that, as Claudia puts it, “these two f..kwads are going to destroy our wedding”, the families come up with a scheme to reunite them as lovers, which they suss out and decide to pretend has worked.
Also at the nuptials are Bea’s former fiancé Jonathan (Darren Barnet) and Ben’s one-time Aussie fling Margaret (Australian fashion model Charlee Fraser), who is there with her new boyfriend, Beau (Neighbours alumnus Joe Davidson), a hunky surfer who is described, not unkindly, as “Bitch Hemsworth”.
Bryan Brown, as Halle’s father, has some of the best lines. When the parents on the other side of the aisle (Dermot Mulroney and an underused Rachel Griffiths) declare they think of Jonathan as a son, he drawls, “That may be your problem, mate. Bea may not want to shag her brother.”
The script, by the director and Ilana Wolpert, plays to the film’s intent: a little racy, slightly cringey, by and large funny. The cinematography (Danny Ruhlmann) feeds into this, showing Sydney Harbour in all its glory but including comic nods to James Cameron’s Titanic (1997).
Sweeney is a fine dramatic actor, as she shows in Tina Satter’s crime drama Reality (2023). This new film reveals a talent for her physical comedy, from the opening meet cute moment in a café involving a hand dryer, to being stuck in a compromising position mid-flight with the sleeping Ben, to the best scene, which involves the arachnophobe Ben, a huntsman spider and cavities Bea would prefer not to search.
As you watch that scene, in which Ben is naked, you’ll bet against the two hotties reigniting their passion. But then you’ll need to factor in that this is a romantic comedy after all.
Anyone But You is raunchier than rom-com predecessors such as Richard Curtis’s Christmas favourite Love, Actually (2003), but within its limitations it’s an entertaining movie that pokes a bit of fun at its own genre and at Australia in general. Wait for the appearance of a koala near the end.
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