![\"howtobesingle\"](\"http:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/howtobesingle.jpg\")
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This time last year we were handed Dakota Johnson as our charming new \u2018girl next door\u2019 star in Fifty Shades of Grey<\/em>. Now she\u2019s trying desperately to stay single in New York, the city that never sleeps \u2013 the exact opposite to the majority of romantic comedies we see set\u00a0in the Big Apple.<\/p>\n How To Be Single<\/em> is based on Sex and the City<\/em> show writer Liz Tuccillo\u2019s book of the same name \u2013 ironically, in the hit TV series, columnist Carrie is always trying to couple up. This new film\u2019s story still deals with bad dates and characters yet to reach their full potential. However, it only just hangs together enough for us to care whether being single is the best situation to finding fulfilment in life.<\/p>\n Alice (Johnson) has just graduated but wants time off from long-term college boyfriend Josh (Nicholas Braun) to \u2018discover herself\u2019. She heads to New York, starts a new job as a paralegal, and meets resident party animal, receptionist Robin (Rebel Wilson) \u2013 who is more than happy to demonstrate her hedonistic ways, how to get free drinks all night and stay single.\u00a0Alice\u2019s workaholic older sister, paediatrician Meg (Leslie Mann) initially puts little sister up in her comfy apartment, and while Meg is convinced she\u2019s got the best lifestyle, she gets broody and then finds love in the most unexpected place, in the endearingly goofy Ken (Jake Lacy).<\/p>\n Meanwhile, singleton Lucy (Alison Brie) likes to do the stats on her chances of finding \u2018the one\u2019, preferring analysing online dating apps. She uses the free wifi in the bar beneath her flat, much to the amusement of bar manager Tom (Anders Holm). Tom doesn\u2019t want anything serious with any female, even going so far as making his own pad a \u2018chick-free stop-over zone\u2019. Who comes out the happiest remains the common thread.<\/p>\n As cute and ironic as this film is, it\u2019s actually several stories running parallel \u2013 some getting more attention and screen-time than others. They all connect to Alice in some way, except Lucy\u2019s tale. Hers merely serves to highlight the dominance of online dating nowadays \u2013 and its flaws. In fact, Lucy\u2019s is the most interesting too, and though she never actually meets Alice, she somehow ends up at Alice\u2019s rooftop birthday party \u2013 as if all of New York\u2019s singletons got the call sign. As fun as it is, Lucy\u2019s story seems rather redundant in the scheme of things, even though Brie is delightfully desperate in the role.<\/p>\n Another subplot thrown in purely for schmaltz value is Alice\u2019s dalliance with handsome and successful businessman David, played by Damon Wayans Jr. He gets slightly more screen-time to shamelessly pull at the heartstrings with a kid sob story \u2013 or maybe, it\u2019s meant to be another lesson in being strong and staying single in the city?<\/p>\n Wilson is a screen presence alone \u2013 often used to prop up the film\u2019s flagging moments. Nevertheless, we know very little about Robin and why she is as she is \u2013 even the end reveal does nothing to explain things. Wilson snatches all the best lines and gets the big laughs as sexually-liberated Robin \u2013 just think SATC<\/em>\u2019s Samantha, only an alcoholic. As Alice is the butt of her jibes, her delivery feels forced sometimes, simply because Johnson\u2019s sweet acting demeanour just doesn\u2019t cut the mustard against a Wilson tirade.<\/p>\n As lovely as Johnson is as Alice \u2013 and effortlessly cool and sexy, she just doesn\u2019t have the rom-com heroine charisma to convincingly pull things off, especially opposite Wilson. Thank goodness for the ever-reliable Mann in the trio\u2019s scenes to soften the \u2018Rebel yell\u2019. Indeed, Meg\u2019s story is very witty in itself, as the career woman realises that not everything is running as smoothly as she thinks in life. In reality, she and Ken\u2019s chances of survival are slim \u2013 where being clingy and bordering on stalker-like is wholly unacceptable, but in the world of the romantic comedy, we can laugh it all off as being quite endearing.<\/p>\n How To Be Single<\/em> doesn\u2019t really enlighten us in how one should be single, unless you count running away from it, which seems a rather short-term ideal. It\u2019s flawed as things don\u2019t seem to have been adequately thought through, whether this is lost in translation from Tuccillo\u2019s written word or not. The story seems to rely on its dominant characters to pull us through the flatter moments, as Johnson\u2019s casting in the lead is the film\u2019s biggest gamble \u2013 and one that doesn\u2019t quite come off.<\/p>\n 2\/5 stars<\/strong><\/p>\n By @FilmGazer<\/p>\n