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House review of How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003)

Romantic comedy is a tried and true film genre, people love it, and Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey have a talent for it. They even have some chemistry with each other on screen. But it's not enough to make this a likable film.

This movie can't get past its own premise. It's one of those hard-to-believe rom-coms where everybody's using each other, and it's hard to understand how they could possibly have fallen in love with the person the other person is pretending to be. The main characters, Ben and Andi, started out dealing dirty and just go downhill from there.

Ben is an advertising exec who wants a certain big-ticket jewelry account. His boss is doubtful that he has the chops for it, since his specialty up to now has been “guy” accounts—with mostly sport and sex related themes. He wants to branch out, and to prove that he understands women well enough to run a jewelry campaign, he bets the competing execs that he can make someone fall in love with him in ten days.

Andi is a journalist working the advice column beat at a women's magazine that's obviously supposed to be Cosmo or something very like it. Deep down she wants to be a “serious” journalist, but she's stuck doing fluff to pay the bills. Her best friend (in the way of all rom-com female BFFs) is a nice girl with bad luck in men, and some girl talk reveals that the BFF (Kathryn Hahn) actually chases men away with her boundary-crossing pressure-filled relationship tactics. She's never been able to hold on to a man for more than ten days. Andi decides to try entering into a relationship using the BFF's tactics, and then to write an article about it. Hence, the name of the film, How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days. Of course, the guy she homes in on is Ben, whose career depends on making her fall in love with him.

I probably don't really have to give all the details from this point on. I'm sure you can figure out what happens—which is part of the problem with this film. Every genre film has to follow a certain formula, but that doesn't mean they have to be boring or predictable, and this one is. Andi becomes the girlfriend from hell in order to write her story, and Ben doesn't end their relationship because he's got this bet going. So there's no sincerity, no revealing the real people they are. Fortunately there is one scene where Ben takes Andi home to meet his family for a weekend—though why he would want his family to meet the fake-horrible Andi is beyond me. They do have some real moments, and those are nice...but once back in the city, all the manipulation kicks back in.

Even though the acting is good and the supporting cast is entertaining, it's just too much to believe that these people, as their relationship stands now, are ready to claim their happy-ever-after.

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Film Rating: 2.8/10 (6 votes cast)

Reviewed by Elessar
Last updated:

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