Review: How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

Posted by Josh Radde (josh@filmschoolrejects.com) on October 3, 2008

There’s a lot of box-office powerhouses present in How To Lose Friends and Alienate People–Jeff Bridges (Iron Man), Megan Fox (Transformers), Kirsten Dunst (Spider-Man), and Danny Huston (in the upcoming Wolverine), all play roles in a film that is sending up the superficiality of Hollywood, and the self-aware movie-makers who constantly pat themselves on the back. In the center of it all is master of satire and spoof, with Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz already under his belt, Simon Pegg. But the one thing director Robert Weide (of Curb Your Enthusiasm fame) forgot to tell Pegg was that the movie they were making isn’t really satirical. It doesn’t mock Hollywood or celebrities (much), and when it does it really just gnaws on the meat instead of taking a bite.

Pegg plays Sidney Young (modeled after How To Lose’s novelist Toby Young), a British tabloid-magazine writer who gets pegged to work at the behest of mentor Clayton Harding (Jeff Bridges), Sharp Magazine’s managing editor in New York. Once there he realizes he’s a small fish in a big pond, a needle in a haystack, or any other cliche you can throw in when describing this movie (or any movie about a person with a humble background “making it” in the big city — I recommend The Secret of My Succe$s starring Michael J. Fox as the ultimate example).

You would think that a movie about a tabloid journalist would be ripe for tearing apart the annoying industry of celebrity worship. With TMZ having its own television show and Paris Hilton still being the example of a world that truly has no standards for fame, you’d think that material would just be littered on the writing-room floor. Instead, we get scenes where dogs fall out of windows and Pegg wears disguises so that he can avoid being detected by a bouncer. And what’s more so disheartening is that this movie tries to sell itself as a modern-day re-telling of The Apartment (the 1960 film starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine).

However, it’s not without some good moments. Although there’s little chemistry between Pegg and Dunst at the beginning, they get a bit more comfortable with each other as the film goes on. What prevents any of this relationship from developing is that we’re never given any motivation for the characters’ actions–for instance, what attracts Alison (Dunst) to get involved in an obviously destructive relationship with her boss (Huston) or why does Sidney want so badly to get out of the shadow of his writer father? Although we can infer the answers, the movie makes no effort to guide us along the way.

Pegg, as usual, is quite good. He has natural comedic ability that can turn half-baked comedies like this and Run Fatboy, Run into passable comedies. Here he gets to relish in being obnoxious, yet when he turns the charm on it still seems natural for Sidney to do so. Dunst is good with what she’s got, as is Bridges and Gillian Anderson in limited roles. What strikes me as odd about Bridges is that he’s playing the mentor role in the film, yet does so little to actually mentor, guide, dissuade, encourage, berate, or instruct Sidney. There’s a part where Bridges’ Clayton says that he sees a lot of himself in Sidney, yet we never see that re-emergence in Clayton himself.

I will say, however, that Megan Fox is more than capable in the film. She plays the clueless movie star who’s starring in a biopic based on the forbidden lover of Mother Teresa (the trailer for said film is one of the funnier moments in the film, very reminiscent of Robert Downey and Tobey Maguire’s “Satan’s Alley” in Tropic Thunder). I would dare say that she has the most dramatically complex character in the entire film, and she nails it. She’s more than just gorgeous in the film (which also has a tiny cameo by Fox’s real-life boyfriend Brian Austin Green), she lights up the screen in a “Kate Hudson as Penny Lane in Almost Famous” way (almost).

Overall, it’s disappointing that this movie wasn’t better. Director Weide has always done a nice job of taking a stab at superficial people and ridiculous stereotypes as director/producer of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” but here he doesn’t really do anything to show that superficiality as either a negative or positive thing. Instead he settles for visual gags and awkward moments where Pegg makes an idiot of himself. And though some of it is funny, it’s ultimately pointless.

So for at least two movies in a row now, Simon Pegg as been on autopilot, and I’m beginning to sense a Will Ferrell thing going on with him, where he’ll just do anything as long as he gets to do his shtick and not be challenged. Luckily, with Star Trek on the way maybe we’ll get to see what Pegg can do in a different genre. Until then, I hope he just sticks with writing his own movies and gets back to collaborating with Edgar Wright, Nick Frost, or ANYONE who understands satire.

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