Arts & Entertainment

'How to Lose a Guy' equally amusing for both sexes

By Mason Lerner
The Daily Cougar

I am a typical guy. I hate chick flicks. I like watching football in my boxers. I can't help but almost break my neck every single time a beautiful co-ed passes me on campus. If a woman that I am dating merely mentions "commitment" I am on the road again faster than Willie Nelson trying to duck the IRS.

That being said, only a few hours ago I would have thought that if some unlikely, okay, impossible twist of fate suddenly found me dating Kate Hudson, there would be nothing she could do to scare me away. I was only about 20 minutes into How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days before I learned just how wrong I was.

The smiles of both protagonists, journalist, Andie Anderson (Kate Hudson), and ad-man, Benjamin Barry (Matthew McConaughey) light up the screen so brightly that members of both sexes might be adequately entertained by that alone. 

Luckily, there is more to this movie than just a couple of pretty faces. How to Lose a Guy is definitely laugh out loud funny.

A curious chain of coincidental, yet not too annoyingly contrived events lead Andie and Ben to find themselves on opposite ends of the dating spectrum. It seems that Andie's latest assignment for her magazine (think Redbook or Glamour) calls for her to meet a guy, "flip the switch", the movie's euphemism for doing it like they do on the Discovery Channel, and follow it up by making every dating mistake in the book. All of this so she can shake the poor bastard in ten days, and use him as fodder for her column.

Just minutes before Andie enters a New York hot spot patronized by the Big Apple's "upwardly mobile" to find her mark, Ben finds himself crashing a business meeting at the same venue. After failing to convince his boss to appoint him the lead man on a huge new account, Ben and his associates come up with a wager that could land him the account after all. 

His boss agrees to let Benis competitors for the account choose any girl in the bar for Ben to try to pick up. If he can make her fall in love with him in ten days, the account is his. Not since Mike Brady installed a payphone in his own house has anyone on celluloid endured so much to land an account.

Screenwriters, Kristen Buckley, Brian Regan and Burr Steers pull out every known dating faux pas on their way to transforming Andie from the perfect woman to the clingy psycho that every man loathes. At times it seems that Andie's character degenerates from being a focused stream of relationship mistakes to simply being downright goofy, but there are just enough gags at just the right times to make that an after thought. Director Donald Petrie (Miss Congeniality) also deserves kudos for the believable banter between the films characters that ultimately makes it succeed.

Although the humor is not particularly sophisticated, and I can say that with conviction due to the fact that they actually dip into fart jokes, the film wins by hitting on universal dating themes that just about everyone that has ever had a girlfriend/boyfriend turned stalker can laugh about now. How To Lose a Guy survives the inevitable revelatory and reconciliatory sappiness of its ending, and is without a doubt a great date movie. 

Also worth noting is that Matthew McConaughey's character makes his entrance to the film on a motorcycle dressed exactly like the "Cool Rider" from Grease II. Sadly, that look is no cooler now than in was in 1982.

How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days

Rated-R

Starring: Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey.

the verdict: The film wins by hitting on universal dating themes and using immature humor.

 Send comments to dcshobiz@mail.uh.edu