Riddle me this: what do you get when you mix every romcom trope under the sun, early-2000s actors at their peak, and an incredibly convoluted plot that really never resolves itself with any emotional satisfaction? That would be the 2003 romcom How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Starring Matthew McConaughey as Ben Barry and Kate Hudson as Andie Anderson (even their character names are corny as hell), this film manages to hit every romcom note while simultaneously being one of the worst examples of movie journalism I have ever seen. Did I hate it? No. Am I going to rip it apart? Absolutely.

 

Andie Anderson is a journalist. We know this because it is essentially the one thing the film lets us know about her. The opening shots of this movie establish her position at the fictional Composure magazine, and the film is very invested in us knowing that Andie writes for a women’s magazine that is deemed trashy by the film itself. We see some of Andie’s by-lines and the accompanying “research” she did to write them. My personal favorite is her hanging upside down at a gym for the article “How to get a better bod.” The film seems to think that if we see all of these montage shots of Andie writing her how-to column, it’ll be enough for us to get a sense of who she is as a person.

 

While I’m not going to knock anyone for finding identity in their career, the imbalance of character information we get for Andie versus what we get for Ben would be funny if it didn’t make me irrationally angry. This movie cares not at all at making them both fleshed out people, and using Andie’s career to trick us into thinking she is is just lazy. Much later in the film, we see Ben’s family and spend this lovely day on Staten Island with them. We learn nothing about Andie’s family. Zero. She is only defined by her job, and the movie expects us to believe that is enough to buy her as a fully fleshed-out character. As I was watching, I realized that I didn’t know really anything at all about Andie, especially because the movie’s premise has her acting like a different person throughout the narrative.

 

Although the only thing we learn about Andie right off the bat is that she is a how-to columnist for Composure, the movie makes it very clear that this kind of writing is beneath her. From the tone of the opening with the shots of other magazines, this film is really invested in hammering home to the audience that Composure isn’t “real journalism.” What does it say about how the film is viewing writing for an audience of women if Andie is supposedly “too good” to work at Composure? We see Andie working on a “passion project” of hers, an article with the title “How to Solve the Conflict in Tajikistan,” which, just on a base level, is a cheap attempt to make Andie “not like other girls.” She went to grad school for journalism, we’re told, so it must obviously follow that writing articles that seem to her to not “matter” feels like unfulfilled career goals.

 

And yet, the film constantly makes reference to the fact that Composure is the fastest growing magazine in the country and Andie is its star columnist. What if Andie had been allowed to be happy in her job, writing “trivial” articles but successfully doing so? When Ben’s coworkers refer to Composure as a “little girlie magazine,” I can’t help but feel like Andie feels like that too. By making her job a source of frustration rather than of fulfillment, this film falls into the trope that other (better) movies like The Devil Wears Prada dealt with with much more nuance: the educated woman slumming it doing work beneath her so she can get ahead. See also: Set It Up and Two Weeks Notice.

 

All is not lost for representation of a positive working environment, as Andie seems to have two close friends at work, played by Kathryn Hahn and Annie Parisse. But to be honest, 30 seconds after the movie was over, I couldn’t remember their names or what their roles were at the magazine. The two friends seem to cease to exist when not with Andie. All I know is that Kathryn Hahn is a star and her character has boy problems, which prompts, in a roundabout sort of way, Andie to begin that article that forms the basis of the shenanigans in this movie. This movie is a series of shenanigans.

 

Here is the premise of Andie and Ben’s romantic relationship, in case you forgot or it was too convoluted in the first place but Kate and Matthew were nice to look at so you just kind of went for it: Andie gets the assignment to write a how-to article called “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” wherein she will find a guy, date him, and do so many of the things “women do” that drive men away that after 10 days, he will leave her.

 

At the same time, Ben, who works for the bro-iest advertising agency maybe ever, is competing with two beautiful coworkers named Judy for a diamond campaign. They assert that he can’t sell diamonds to women because he doesn’t know how to sell love, and all involved agree that if Ben can make a woman fall in love with him by this fancy party for the diamond company (which happens to be 10 days away!), he can have the account. Conveniently, the Judys have just been to the Composure offices earlier that day, heard the topic of Andie’s next article, and when they just so happen to see her in a bar, they select Andie as the object of Ben’s conquest. Neither romantic partner knows of the other’s real intentions. Hijinks ensue. I’m exhausted. This is an example of cliches and tropes at their worst.

 

Right away, the premise of Andie’s article rings several alarm bells for me. Andie takes the article in response to her friend and coworker, Michelle’s, inability to keep a boyfriend due to her clingy behavior. It is literally at the expense of another woman that Andie sets out to ensnare a guy and drive him crazy, which is not all that ethical to begin with. I’m no journalist (although I did write for my mostly terrible high school newspaper), but even at Composure, aren’t there some sort of journalistic standards? This movie is a classic example of the “unethical female journalist” trope, something we’ve seen in TV shows like the Gilmore Girls revival and in recent Netflix Christmas romcom A Christmas Prince. I wouldn’t recommend either, in case you were wondering.

 

Andie using Ben for her article, torturing him beyond what is just stereotypical clingy girl behavior, is downright cruel. If Ben hadn’t also been using Andie to win the diamond account, this relationship between the two of them would have been completely irredeemable for the film. The things that Andie does to Ben go far beyond what she says she will set out to do for the column — I mean, no person of sound mind gets a dog for a person they’ve been dating for less than 10 days. Despite her and the film’s persistent reminders to the audience that she’s better than the kind of writing they do at Composure, she isn’t exactly going to be winning a Pulitzer for her “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” piece.

 

Toward the end, when Andie has truly fallen for Ben and goes to her boss to ask if she can kill the piece, she’s told she needs to suck it up and be a “professional” about the whole thing. I cannot stress this enough: there was literally nothing professional about this article or the whole situation to begin with. Yet, the film needs us to forgive Andie of this, to see her genuine frustration that Ben won’t leave her, despite her insane antics. Is Andie a good journalist for sticking with the story and falling for Ben in the process (who, I might add, is also insane for staying with this girl. No work bet is worth this.)? Is she bad journalist for lowering her standards and taking this article in the first place? Did she have any standards at all? The film needs us to like Andie, so we get moments that show us she feels bad for what she is doing to Ben, but yet she still sticks with it?

 

The hoops this movie has to jump through in order for the two of them to end up together in classic romcom fashion are actually absurd. For one thing, we as the audience need to believe that Ben and Andie somehow fell for one other — not the version of themselves they were pretending to be — amid Andie’s torture of him and Ben’s kowtowing to her every insane whim. Yes, there is that one nice scene where they visit his family on Staten Island, but one nice scene does not a relationship make, my friends.

 

In order for the audience to be on board with Andie and Ben, the film, by necessity, takes a serious break from the both of their jobs. We see them having genuine moments! I wonder why Ben doesn’t question why Andie is acting like a completely different person! The film seems to be asking us to consider that these two would be good together if not for the job constraints on their romance. Yet, they’re only together because of their respective careers. Would they even have met if not for Michelle’s terrible luck in men, the lack of journalistic standards at Composure and some scheming by the Judys? Maybe not.

 

Buckle up people, because there still a heck of a lot of this movie to get through. There is a ridiculously complicated climactic scene in which all is revealed at the diamond party thing and I have a hard time following it. Can someone please go back, watch this movie, explain how the two of them scream-singing “You’re So Vain” at an EVENT for his JOB is anything resembling emotional resolution? I don’t know. Later, Andie hands in a draft of the article and quits her job. Like, she full-on quits a job writing a successful column because suddenly she found a sense of ethics? A few things: yes, I shouldn't begrudge anyone leaving a job because their heart isn’t in it.

 

Clearly, Andie has the privilege to work because she wants to, not because she has to in order to survive. She wrote an article instructing her readers how to argue out of a ticket, if we need anymore examples of her privilege. And yet, 2019-me is dumbfounded that she would quit, especially as this is kind of a mess of her own making. She chose to write the article, knowing full well the compromises she would have to make. Also, girl, who says you can’t freelance on the side? Everybody works more than one job these days, especially in media.

 

Yet, the film is not content to have Andie walk of Composure, head held high, and roll the credits. Ben reads the article, realizes she really loved him (again, after 10 days!) and it is time for perhaps the most classic romcom trope of them all: the chase to the airport. Sidenote: I kind of feel like Ben should have lost his job as well after his behavior at the party, but I guess it’s wishful thinking that a woman and a man would be held to the same standards. Anyway, we learn that Andie is on her way to the airport to go to D.C. for an interview for a political writing job. Follow your passions! Right as I’m feeling proud of her for the first time in this whole movie, who would catch up to her cab but Ben on a motorcycle. He makes some good points: she can write anywhere. They would be good together, as two very attractive people. But also, if she wants to move to D.C., maybe let her? Y’all were together 10 miserable days.

 

But, because it’s romcom land, Andie abandons the job maybe waiting for her in D.C. in favor of a relationship with Ben, who she really doesn’t even know. The film can’t decide: does Andie put her career over love and that’s what drove Ben away? Should she be an empowered career woman that Ben respects? Is love with Ben worth giving up her dream job for? Seemingly all of those things are true at once, and I hate it. While I will never pass up the opportunity to watch two beautiful galavant around New York, I wanted so much more from this movie.