← Back to Reviews
 

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days



Despite charismatic leads and some funny situations, the 2003 comedy How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days doesn't really sustain its paper-thin premise for the film's entire running time.

The film stars Kate Hudson as Andie Anderson, a magazine writer who has been assigned to write the title article for her magazine and has chosen one Benjamin Barry (Matthew McConaughey) as the objective of demonstrating her article. Unknown to Anderson, Barry has bet co-workers that he can make a woman fall in love with him in 10 days.

This film, based on a pair of books by Michele Alexander and Jeanne Long, just doesn't possess the substance to actually admit to being inspired by two different books. I can't believe that it took 2 books to come up with an uninspired comedy that comes off as a tired retread of the Doris Day Rock Hudson comedies of the 60's.

Donald Petrie's direction is a little on the pedestrian side, but the leads are attractive and there are effective supporting bits offered along the way by Bebe Neuwirth, Robert Klein, Adam Goldberg, Kathryn Hahn, and Celia Weston, but I guess your appreciation of the film depends on how much you love Hudson and McConaughey, whose obvious onscreen chemistry just wasn't enough to make this film work.