As an avid rom-com lover, I was excited to see Anyone But You, the new romance movie everyone was talking about. After watching it months after it was released, I do not think it lived up to the hype created from talking to my friends and also the hype generated on social media.
Bea (Sydney Sweeney) and Ben (Glen Powell) pretend to be the perfect couple for a destination wedding in Sydney, whilst secretly hating each other. You can guess what happens next.
I am all for cheesy cringey rom-coms but Anyone But You was frustratingly predictable with no plot twists or challenges for the characters at all. From the beginning scene, when Ben and Bea met at the coffee shop we all knew they would end up together.
Anyone But You is meant to be loosely based on Shakespeare’s play Much Ado About Nothing. Loosely, is key here, as the character names gain inspiration from the play but that’s about it. In Much Ado About Nothing, the side characters set up the love interests, Benedick and Beatrice, throughout the whole play and in the end they confess their love. Whereas in the movie the side characters attempt to set them up and when they figure this out they pretend to be together. This film did not execute the complicated storyline that Shakespeare originally created. This film cannot be contrasted against the original film adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, 10 Things I Hate About You, with Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles, a classic heartwarming rom-com.
These iconic 90’s rom-coms focussed on the actual romance side of things: the chemistry and the audience rooting for both characters to get together. We need to bring back more rom-coms like this, ones that don’t just focus on the actors and their hot bodies. I want rom-coms with a real backbone, something unpredictable and real that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, not some unsurprising and obvious romantic match. The movie lacked excitement and the characters were unconvincing as a couple.
Anyone But You lacked character depth and both characters were objectified. In every scene that Bea is in she shows off her fake breasts and Ben shows his six-pack. Romance is not just sexual desire unlike this movie is portraying it to be. Rom-coms are meant to have more than just physical attraction.
In society, we often wonder why women have body image issues. By focusing on the physical side of attraction this movie emphasises and stigmatises that women should look a certain way and men should be fit with a six-pack. This is what young women are watching and it is resulting in pressure for them to look a certain way. The character Bea is an example of sexualisation instead of focusing on character traits and what is beneath the surface, a conscious decision that the directors have made. Then casting Sydney Sweeney furthers this point as she is yet another actress who portrays body types that aren’t realistic for the everyday woman. She has even joked to Saturday Night Live about using the diabetic drug, Ozempic to lose weight.
I was hoping for another strong rom-com but was disappointed about the objectification of women on screen and the portrayal that physical appearance overpowers other aspects of romance.
Grace Cooper is a final year Media (Comms and Journalism) and Arts (Theatre and Performance Studies) student. Grace is also starting at AFTRS (Australian Film Television and Radio School) to complete a graduate diploma in Radio and Podcasting. She loves all things theatre and performance, as well as rom-coms. She also writes theatre reviews for Stage Door Podcast. Another love of hers is coffee, it has become a necessary part of her university life. Grace attended Basser College for her first few years of university and has organised publicity and graphic design for multiple shows within NUTS (New South Wales University Theatrical Society).
