Anyone But You Reviews: Bad Movie, Great Chemistry!

Anyone but You is a new rom com starring Hollywood’s most unsatiable actors – Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell. The film is directed by Will Gluck and is a Sony Pictures production. The rom com also boasts a fantastic supporting cast including Darren Barnet, Alexandra Shipp, Hadley Robinson and Dermot Mulroney. Just when we thought 2023 was going to end with the likes of Wonka and Aquaman 2, there is a new competitor in the market. The Will Gluck directorial is rated R and as evidenced by the trailer, we’re going to get some racy scenes. The film doesn’t promise any leap in the cinematic landscape, rather plays to its strength of having two very talented/attractive actors in an old fashioned rom com. So, does it deliver on what it promises? Let’s hear what the critics have to say.

Anyone but You Reviews: Mixed Reactions All Around!

Anyone but You has not opened up to rave reviews from the critics. The film is scrutinized for being generic and derivative, although the erotic chemistry between the two lead stars is fantastic. With an IMDb score of 6.4/10 and a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 48%, Anyone but You has released in theatres without much critical acclaim. Read all the reviews from critics below:

Rafer Guzman (Newsday) – ““Anyone But You” might pass muster as a pleasant holiday-season diversion, but it’s also a reminder that even the most dazzling smiles and perfect bodies can’t sustain a two-hour movie.” Original Score: 1.5/4

Wenlei Ma (PerthNow) – “Anyone But You’s would-be-lovers don’t so much sizzle as fizzle.” Original Score: 2/5

Valerie Complex (Deadline Hollywood Daily) – “Without the charm and wit of actors like Dermont Mulroney and GaTa, Sweeny and Powell’s performances would fail to carry the film’s comedic timing.”

Amy Nicholson (New York Times) – “The running time is all flimsy bikinis and flimsier excuses to get people undressed. A tarantula? Strip off those shorts! Itchy sand? Swim trunks begone! A fire? Snuff out the flames with a dress!”

Robert Moran (Sydney Morning Herald) – “Whatever sparkling chemistry we thought we saw in the film’s immaculate PR drip-feed, it’s barely there in the final product” Original Score: 2.5/5

Alex Abad-Santos (Vox) – “The movie is bad, but the chemistry: It’s good.”

Chandler Levack (Globe and Mail) – “Anyone But You deserves to be graded on a curve. It is an excellent plane movie: made for the sky where the high altitude kills brain cells. Compared to the glut of Christmas rom-coms populating Netflix, it’s a masterpiece.”

Richard Lawson (Vanity Fair) – “Eventually… Powell’s cocksure strut begins to grate more than it seduces. A lot of Sweeney’s line delivery is strangely flat; she seems drowsy, distracted. It doesn’t help that the plot mechanics creak and clank far louder than anyone’s talking.”

Derek Smith (Slant Magazine) – “The film doesn’t bother to create a compelling world around its charming leads.” Original Score: 2/4

Drew Gillis (AV Club) – “No one goes into a movie like Anyone But You for realism, nor should they. The film is made as fun escapism, and it succeeds at that.” Original Score: B-

Richard Roeper (Chicago Sun-Times) – “The leads played by Sydney Sweeney (“Euphoria”) and Glen Powell (“Top Gun: Maverick”) are borderline terrible people much of the time, and the chemistry between these two gorgeous actors gets a C+ at best.” Original Score: 2.5/4

Michael Phillips (Chicago Tribune) – ““Anyone But You” isn’t much of anything but “eh,” and “eh” is a mere two-letter word.” Original Score: 2/4

Jordan Hoffman (The Messenger) – “Less a plot-driven movie than a series of excuses to see Sweeney and Powell in as many states of undress as possible.” Original Score: 6.1/10

Owen Gleiberman (Variety) – “It is, in many ways, as prefab as a lot of the rom-coms of the ’90s and aughts, but there’s something zesty and bracing about how it channels the anti-romanticism of the Tinder-meets-MeToo generation.”

David Ehrlich (indieWire) – ““Anyone but You” refuses to lie to us — or — itself about what it wants to be, and that will be enough to convince a lot of the people who see it not to lie to themselves about the fact that we still want movies to be like this too.” Original Score: B-

Benjamin Lee (Guardian) – “Director Will Gluck… can’t turn his leads into more than swimwear models, centring a romcom around them is like watching a kid force two dolls to kiss.” Original Score: 2/5

David Rooney (Hollywood Reporter) – “Neither screen chemistry nor laughs can be manufactured, especially not with the kind of pedestrian writing in Will Gluck’s Anyone But You, which does nothing to reanimate the moribund studio rom-com.”

Marya E. Gates (RogerEbert.com) – “Has the charm, wit, swoony romance, and, most importantly, star chemistry that has been solely missing from recent lackluster entries in the genre.” Original Score: 3.5/4

Esther Zuckerman (GQ) – “Sweeney and Powell are delightful as well as smokin’ in this loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, one of the most charming big screen rom-coms in years.”

Anyone but You is playing in theatres in US and Canada. The film will release in India from January 5th, 2024.

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