Runtime: 103 minutes

Written by: Ilana Wolpert and Will Gluck

Directed by: Will Gluck

Starring: Sydney Sweeney, Glen Powell, Hadley Robinson, Alexandra Shipp, GaTa, Bryan Brown, Rachel Griffiths, Dermot Mulroney, Charlee Fraser, Darren Barnet, Joe Davidson

By Sarah Manvel

It is an absolute pleasure to see someone modernise the wheel, especially when the wheel is a romantic comedy on film in a cinema. You’d think a lighthearted entertainment that is only worried about whether two pretty people will fall in love would be the easiest thing in the world to make, but if we look at the output from American studios in the last fifteen or so years, we have come to understand it’s the opposite. Well, thank heavens for the cast and crew of “Anyone But You,” which knows exactly what it’s doing and does a wonderful job of it. It’s not flawless, but even without rose-tinted glasses it’s such a delight these days it’s hard to express.

Director Will Gluck, who co-wrote the script with Ilana Wolpert, decided to stick with the tried and tested formula of modernising Shakespeare. So instead of Beatrice and Benedict from “Much Ado About Nothing,” here were have Bea (Sydney Sweeney, top billed!) and Ben (Glen Powell, and more on whom later), meeting cute when a mean barista won’t give Bea the restroom key. The ordering line is twenty deep but Ben’s near the front, and after he hands over the key he hangs around with Bea’s peppermint tea (with two sugars, to prove she’s not perfect) until she’s done in there. But despite the promising start all does not end well, and they don’t see each other again until Bea’s sister Halle (Hadley Robinson) has an engagement party. Her bride Claudia (Alexandra Shipp) has a brother named Pete (GaTa), who is somehow Ben’s best friend even though Ben works in finance and Pete is the kind of guy who chats to koalas. That’s right, koalas. Thanks to an absolutely loaded stepdad (Bryan Brown), Halle and Claudia’s wedding is taking place in Australia, and since Bea and Ben are both in the bridal party they’ve got to make nice.

They absolutely cannot, of course, and to the great dismay of the brides and Bea’s interfering parents (Dermot Mulroney and Rachel Griffiths [mysteriously playing American]) Ben and Bea are so vicious to each other they will probably ruin the wedding. But is that all? Only until Ben’s Australian ex Margaret (Charlee Fraser) and Bea’s childhood Jonathan (Darren Barnet) join the fun. The partridge in this pear tree is Margaret’s current fella Beau (Joe Davidson), an amiable surfer/incomprehensible foreigner who is mostly there to keep Margaret off the table. While Ben still has feelings for Margaret, Bea absolutely does not have feelings for Jonathan, so they decide that pretending to be ‘dating’ will at least make Margaret jealous and get Bea’s family to leave her alone. 

The ensuing hijinks include swimming in evening wear, a surprising number of helicopter rescues, some fairly serious talks about how a person makes their own choices, compliments for the excellence of Australian coffee, and a dog named Klonopin. Pretty ordinary stuff. But Ms Sweeney and Mr Powell bring a crackle to their dialogue which cannot be faked, and they’re both willing to be foolish in service to the plot. Ben does a lot of shirtless exercising on the beach, and there’s a silly hiking sequence in which Ben sees a spider, immediately yeets his clothes off a cliff, and demands Bea check his backside for any other intruders. To her credit, Bea does so without laughing at Ben’s panic, and the audience gets to admire Mr Powell’s form while considering that nowadays in romcoms the men take their clothes off more than the women do. Thanks, feminism!

If there is a criticism of the film, it’s that Bea and Ben are so seriously angry with each other for so long that it sours the first half of the film. Fortunately Mr Powell was born to make romantic comedies (though his upcoming “Hit Man” is the one not to miss) and gives his arrogant bro a pleasing sense of humor. Ms Sweeney’s character is underwritten – it’s not fair that Bea doesn’t have a direction for her life yet, unlike every single other person here – but she’s a thoughtful and determined actress, making sure we have the sense Bea’s not going to be floundering for long. Everybody else is charming, Amelia Gebler puts everyone (especially the brides) in some very pretty dresses and the sun-kissed cinematography by Danny Ruhlmann undoubtedly has the Australian tourist board beside themselves with glee. Not one single person in the film blinks an eye at the lesbians at the movie’s center, which is not important to the younger generation but something that was simply unimaginable even fifteen years ago. And this review has had a full extra star added because the credit sequence includes a montage of the cast and extras in every scene singing along to Ben’s serenity song. 

Mr Gluck is very good at this, and considering basically nobody else is making movies like this right now let’s hope he makes a billion more of them.