Film Review: How To Be Single

Alice is a recent college graduate who decides to take a temporary break from her longtime boyfriend Josh before moving to New York so that she can “find herself.” Once in New York, Alice is surrounded by a party girl, a playboy bartender, a girl intent on finding Mr. Right, and her own sister who sacrificed relationships in favor of her career as a doctor. After a succession of awkward and funny situations, Alice realizes that she has to learn how to love and respect herself without the validation of a relationship.

How To Be Single is a fairly funny but unfortunately uneven film with a confused message. I say it is confused because while Alice becomes empowered by having to accept that she can be perfectly happy without a boyfriend, her sister, who has forsaken relationships in favor of her medical career, literally decides to have a baby via a sperm donor and then pursue a relationship after holding a patient’s baby for five minutes. It would seem that the filmmaker is sending mixed messages here.

Other than that instance, character development and story arcs work much better. The movie does have a number of laugh-out-loud funny moments and is chock full of the most awkward character interactions I’ve seen in quite some time. Many of the film’s best moments come from its secondary characters whose subplots sometimes outshine the main plotline without overshadowing it.

If you’re looking for an awkward and somewhat raunchy comedy, then How To Be Single will work for you, although if you’re on a first date I might steer clear of this one.

How To Be Single (2016); Director: Christian Ditter; Starring: Dakota Johnson, Rebel Wilson, Leslie Mann