It’s Hard Not to Fall for the Charms of Anyone But You

In what might be a rom-com first, the lovers of Anyone But You have their meet-cute during a bathroom emergency. Bea’s (Sydney Sweeney) desperate path to a public restroom key is blocked by the unjust bureaucracy of café purchases, and Ben (Glen Powell) swoops to her rescue, going overboard on the bit and posing as her husband who’s purchasing her a tea. Immediately, it’s clear that Powell can play the rom-com guy like he emerged from the womb with million-dollar smirks and quippy comebacks, but Sweeney labors to embody the hapless rom-com girl: The woman floundering between girlhood and adulthood who hasn’t quite figured out the secret to having it all. There’s something about Sweeney that doesn’t sell cutesy insecurity, a lilt in her voice suggests a struggle to make it all seem real. In a real-life scenario, Sweeney wouldn’t be stumbling, stuttering and blow-drying her jeans with a restroom hand-dryer after spilling sink water all over the crotch. No rom-com leading lady would be, mind you, but we still have to buy into the fantasy.
Once Sweeney settles into moods of aggravation and aggrievement, however, she finally finds her groove, one that she cleared for herself playing the manic, volatile Cassie on HBO’s Euphoria. Not quite needing to hit the emotional highs of that particular character, Sweeney plays annoyed and sultry better than silly and clumsy. These latter two are traits that her scene partner, Powell, clearly embodies more effortlessly, unsurprising if anyone’s seen him in Ryan Murphy’s Scream Queens, this year’s Hit Man or another rom-com, Set It Up, from 2018. Following in the proud footsteps of films like 10 Things I Hate About You and Clueless as a loose Shakespearean adaptation, Anyone But You is Sydney Sweeney’s romantic comedy debut, and it’s evident that at least the second half of that subgenre is not in her wheelhouse. But after the pair’s chaste yet emotionally profound post-meet-cute sleepover, in which commitment fears, miscommunication and a conversation that wasn’t meant for certain ears leads to Ben and Bea holding a mutual grudge against one another, fate shows that it has other plans.
It’s a small world, and Ben is the best friend of Pete (GaTa), who is the brother of Claudia (Alexandra Shipp), who is the soon-to-be wife of Bea’s sister, Halle (Hadley Robinson). Halle and Claudia announce their nuptials for a destination wedding in Australia, where Claudia’s family lives, and Ben and Bea are forced to confront their years-long, simmering hatred for one another in close quarters at the family’s home with the rest of the wedding party. When it becomes clear that the two may carelessly allow their distaste for one another to ruin the big day, Claudia and Halle hatch a plan to force Ben and Bea to rip off the band-aid, have sex and release all this unresolved tension.
Unfortunately, that plan is far too half-baked, leading to a hilarious scene in which Pete and Claudia’s father (Bryan Brown) makes Ben all too obviously “overhear” their conversation about how much Bea actually likes him. But Ben and Bea end up hatching their own plan, to make the rest of the wedding party believe that their plan is actually working. Bea’s overbearing parents (Dermot Mulroney and Rachel Griffiths) fly her ex-fiancé all the way out to Australia in their plan to get Bea’s life back on track. So, Ben and Bea, in agreement, pretend to really be into one another, to get Bea’s parents off her back and to make Ben’s Australian ex Maggie (Charlee Frasier) jealous while she’s dating a stereotypically meat-headed Aussie (Joe Davidson).