Romcom genre inches slowly towards reality in ‘How To Be Single’

There is a New York City that exists in our collective imagination: a playground where the young and carefree—or the self-assured and driven, even the quirky and neurotic—learn to love themselves and each other in tastefully decorated if disproportionately-sized apartments. We’ve seen it in "Sex and the City", in "Girls", and in a good number of rom-coms, chick flicks, and screwball comedies. The NYC of "How to Be Single" remains largely the dating hotspot of our dreams, but its inhabitants are inching slowly away from stereotype towards the diverse reality of the city.

“A lot of movies that deal with men and women and dating are about finding the right one, but this is not that,” explains director Christian Ditter. “It’s about embracing the most fun and free time of life while you’re also finding your place in the world, finding friends, finding out what you want to do with your life.”

At the center of it all is Alice, played by Dakota Johnson, whose sexual ingénue Mary Sue was the only good thing in last year’s Valentine hit, "Fifty Shades of Grey". Here she plays a variation of the character, albeit smarter, funnier, more self-aware and proactive.

Fresh off a long-term relationship, Alice moves to New York after college and meets Robin (Rebel Wilson), who schools her in the unwritten rules of hooking up and morning-after recovery. Alice’s much older sister Meg (Leslie Mann) is a career-oriented OB-GYN who decides to become a single mom, but suddenly finds herself attracted to a younger man. Rounding out the quartet is Lucy (Alison Brie), a serial online dater intent on gaming the system and finding her soulmate with free wi-fi from Tom’s Bar, whose owner/bartender is equally baffled and intrigued by her.

Dakota Johnson and Rebel Wilson in 'How To Be Single'. Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures

In truth, Tom (Anders Holm) has more screen time and a stronger connection to the main storyline, but it is a truth universally acknowledged that single women in New York City group in fours and single men are mostly arm candy. That said, the guys in "How to Be Single" are of different flavors—bland college boyfriend (Nicholas Braun), earnest younger man (Jake Lacy), successful single dad (Damon Wayans Jr.), and hipster bookseller (Jason Mantzoukas)—all more or less fleshed out into believable human beings. Your mileage may vary, but personally, Wayans’s and Mantzoukas’s characters were more interesting than their white dude counterparts, though this brings up another fictional NYC conundrum: why are the women so white?

Issues of racial inclusiveness aside, "How to Be Single" portrays some female stereotypes well, despite the uneven pacing that advanced plot but limited the onscreen development of relationships. God bless Rebel Wilson for mainstreaming the fat, funny, sexually assured woman. Audiences have no trouble accepting that Robin is better at the dating game than the conventionally pretty Alice, and except for a throwaway punchline about drinking and confidence, Robin comes across as happily, unapologetically single.

Meg’s accidental May-December romance is also handled matter-of-factly, the comedy fueled not by the age gap, but rather by her struggle to give up a hard-earned independent life (and the occasional physical comedy of pregnancy). Alice’s narrative trajectory is pretty conventional—gym montage epiphany and all—but her happy ending ties neatly with the movie title: she learns that alone isn’t lonely, and there are no hard and fast rules to being single. — BM, GMA News

How to Be Single is now showing in theaters nationwide.