The state of romantic comedies aimed at women sickens me. The newest foray into the genre, the Anna Faris starring What’s Your Number, is a stereotypical and cliché ridden film that we’ve seen far too many times. Oddly enough the film has two screenwriters and is based on a book, all written by women! Yet how do these women portray their own gender in such a harsh and stupid light? Aside from that this Faris film is so stereotypical you don’t even need to see it, watching the trailer answers everything!
Ally (Faris) is supposed to go to her sister’s wedding, but has just broken up with her boyfriend. She soon finds out in an article the average number of sexual partners a woman has in her lifetime is lower than Ally’s, and that as soon as a woman hits 20 she’s doomed to be single. With that Ally looks up all her past boyfriends, with the help of her sexy neighbor Colin (Chris Evans), desperate to find out if she let “the one” slip by.
Having seen this similar premise is hundreds of movies I can’t recommend the story. The only good part is that Chris Evans continues to play the loveable rouge who doesn’t wear a shirt for a good portion of the movie. If you’re looking for the lowest common denominator in a film, then this is it.
The problem is how cliché and stupid the story is. The movie sets up to doom Ally to be single, not only because she’s slept around, but because she’s slept around and hasn’t had a serious relationship. The movie never addresses the glaring double standard of the film, which is that Ally is immediately labeled a “slut” for having a high number of partners while her neighbor Colin is never condemned for the exact same behavior. The movie also never addresses the idea that something may be wrong with Ally herself. Ally is an apparently successful artist (we never learn anything about her as a person), and she’s apparently perfect. The problem is every man she meets is so awful it’s a surprise anyone’s dated them. Sure there are some nice guys like Martin Freeman’s Englishman Simon or Anthony Mackie’s gay Tom. They’re nice guys but they’re either abandoned over a lie on Ally’s part or because of a lie on the male’s part respectively. The movie never looks at the reason why these relationships failed in an honest light, just a simple “it didn’t work out because he’s (enter one word here)” and they move on.
The cast doesn’t help matters either as they have no personality to work with the in the script, thus no personality in the acting. Faris and her baby-doll voice are annoying on site, but her character is just boring with no flaws aside from the fact that she’s single. She breaks up with her boyfriend and immediately goes hunting for another…that’s right after sleeping with another guy. Evans has a good smile and body sure but he’s just playing the too-cool guy from all his other movies.
In the end I was flat bored and offended at my gender with What’s Your Number. I thought we’d moved beyond these “doomed to be single” type of films with movies like Easy A or Bridesmaids. Instead this shows why men all think we’re crazy. Faris and Evans are cute, but they’re as superficial as this movie.
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