How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
directed by Donald Petrie
screenplay by Kristen Buckley & Brian Regan and Burr Steers
based on the book How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days: The Universal Don'ts of Dating   by Michele Alexander and Jeannie Long
starring Matthew McConaughey, Kate Hudson, Bebe Neuwirth, Robert Klein

        My plans for viewing How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days included conflicting tasks.  I decided to write my review as a "How to Lose an Audience in 2 Hours: The Universal Don'ts of Filmmaking", and at the same time I bet myself that I would be charmed enough not to walk out, no matter how uncomfortable I made myself. 
        I attended a sneak preview of the movie on a crowded Saturday night and the picture quickly sold out.  I thought about my bet and decided to sit in the very front row of the auditorium, but it was taken over by a slew of teen girls.  The rest of the seats were all occupied and there were few options available that weren't against fire codes and moral ethics.  I ended up standing against the back wall and kept my winter coat on regardless of how hot I became.  After five minutes, my legs were tired and I had tremendous doubts of winning the bet.
       On the screen I was introduced to Ben Barry (McConaughey), an advertising executive who wants an account so badly that he accepts a bet from his boss (Klein) to make a woman fall in love with him.  If he wins, he gets the account.  The woman who is picked for him is Andie Anderson (Hudson), a writer for the women's magazine Composure.  Problem is, she has just accepted an assignment from her boss (Neuwirth) called 'How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days'.  In a week and a half, Barry puts on the charm to woo Andersen while she does everything she can to get dumped.
        I was immediately turned off by the cliches and set ups.  The only "bet" premises I've respected were dealt with more harshly and realistically in films like Dogfight and In the Company of Men.  It doesn't make this film any fresher to include the twist of a reverse mission.  It just makes the story doubly annoying and doubly difficult to accept a happy ending.  I guess they could have told the story in an interesting way, at least, but the screenplay features nothing new, and eventually sinks low enough to introduce fart jokes two thirds in.
       In spite of how bored I was with the story, I found myself smiling.  McConaughey and Hudson are so beautiful and talented that I actually enjoyed watching them most of the time.  Adam Goldberg and Ben Garant are also a lot of fun as McConaughey's sidekicks.  I can't say I laughed out loud more than once, but I wasn't completely edging my way to the exit, either.  I just wish that the actors could make better choices in their roles.  Maybe this will be a breakthrough for them both to accelerate their stardom and allow them more freedom in the future.
       In the end, I won my bet with myself.  I didn't walk out.  There were plenty of times where I honestly wanted to really badly.  The makers of the film succeeded in many of the "don'ts of filmmaking" in my opinion, but the rest of the audience was not lost at all and may have even loved the whole thing.  Next time a picture like this comes along, I think I would rather write a piece entitled, "How I Better Spent My Time Than Seeing This Movie".

"Don't cry. Maybe Cameron Crowe will let you be in his next film.  Or maybe that Merchant-Ivory picture will be a hit."