Thursday, February 06, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Film: How to lose a film audience in two hours

By Bob Grimm

While Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson make for a winning screen pair, the vehicle that puts them together for the first time runs out of energy at the three-quarters mark and flops in its finale.

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days has a premise that proves to be a little too much for its own good. Columnist Andie Anderson (Hudson) makes a deal with her boss (Bebe Neuwirth) to write about a deliberate attempt to send a guy packing after 10 days of relationship hell. She will use her ideal beauty to lure a man into her journalistic trap, and will purposefully act like a psycho to scare him away in the allotted time. If she writes the standard column and victimizes some unsuspecting guy, she will get artistic freedom in the future.

Unbeknownst to her, the man chosen as the subject for her experiment (McConaughey) has made a wager that he can make someone fall in love with him in 10 days. The funny rub here is that Hudson's character, no matter how deliberately insane she behaves to try and expel Barry, can't shake him because he's holding on for his own personal wager.

While the scenario sounds ridiculous, the charming performers almost manage to pull it off. Hudson, a good actress, is often funny as her character goes from clingy to all out baby-talking stalker, and the sight of a dazed McConaughey in a pink Celine Dion concert T-shirt is laugh-out-loud funny.

Things derail in the denouement, when Andie and Barry wind up performing a bizarre karaoke version of "You're So Vain" accompanied by Marvin Hamlisch on keys (don't ask). Until the film blew its gasket in the final reel, it had a fighting chance at being an offbeat/fun weirdo of a movie.

By the time the two embrace on an New York City bridge, the film becomes everything it has been parodying (read: chick flicks). The sweet and sappy doesn't mix well with the warped and nasty, and the lasting feeling is one of letdown. You're better off staying home and watching Sleepless in Seattle for the 50th time.