Anyone But You

The Architecture of Attraction

For the better part of a decade, the theatrical romantic comedy has been treated like an endangered species—or worse, a fossil best left to the sterile museums of streaming algorithms. It was assumed that audiences no longer craved the communal ritual of watching beautiful people bicker, misunderstand, and inevitably collide in a heap of resolved tension. *Anyone But You*, directed by Will Gluck, arrives not merely as a film but as a defiant counter-argument to this cynicism. Gluck, who once injected a similar postmodern wit into *Easy A*, attempts here to resurrect the mid-budget studio romance by returning to the original source code: William Shakespeare.



Loosely adapting *Much Ado About Nothing* into a destination wedding farce set in a hyper-saturated Australia, the film operates less on narrative logic and more on the sheer, brute force of visual symmetry. The cinematography abandons the cozy, soft-focus intimacy of 90s rom-coms in favor of a glossy, almost advertisement-like aesthetic. The Australian landscape is rendered in piercing blues and golds, creating a vacation-brochure reality that feels intentionally heightened. This is a world where physics bends to accommodate the gag—where a hiking rescue involving a spider becomes a choreographed dance of near-nudity and slapstick panic. Gluck understands that in a story this ancient, the visual language must offer a sense of spectacle to justify the price of admission. The camera treats its stars, Sydney Sweeney (Bea) and Glen Powell (Ben), not just as actors, but as architectural marvels, framing them against the Sydney Opera House as if they are monuments of equal stature.



However, the film’s polished exterior occasionally threatens to suffocate its heart. The central conceit—two people pretending to be a couple to mask their mutual disdain—requires a delicate alchemical balance between genuine animosity and repressed desire. Shakespeare’s Benedick and Beatrice fought with razor-sharp wit; Ben and Bea often fight with the petulance of weary influencers. The script occasionally struggles to modernize the Bard’s "merry war," mistaking loudness for passion. Yet, the film finds its salvation in the quiet, bizarre interstices of its formula. There is a surprisingly tender sequence involving Natasha Bedingfield’s "Unwritten," used not as a cheap nostalgia needle-drop, but as a lullaby for anxiety. In this moment, the film briefly drops its defensive posture of coolness and allows a glimpse of the clumsy, embarrassing vulnerability that actually defines falling in love.



Ultimately, *Anyone But You* succeeds not because it reinvents the wheel, but because it reminds us that the wheel still turns. It is a film that functions as a collective sigh of relief for an audience starved of low-stakes glamour. While it may lack the verbal dexterity of its Elizabethan ancestor or the emotional nuance of the genre’s golden age, it possesses a kinetic energy that is undeniable. It asserts that there is still value in the shared experience of the "happy ending," proving that even in a cynical age, we are willing to suspend our disbelief for the sake of a well-executed kiss at sunset.