Written by: Kristen Buckley, Brian Regan, Burr Steers
Starring: Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey, Kathryn Hahn, Annie Parisse, Adam Goldberg
Rating: [3.5/5]
As complex emotional creatures, who often lead with what our heart says rather than our brain, we leave ourselves open to manipulation. This can certainly come in various forms but the manner in which we experience it in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days has just enough venom and charm to make for a lovely and enjoyable romantic comedy.
Unhappy with the content she’s asked to write about in her magazine, Andie (Kate Hudson) proposes an article where she sets to prove she can drive a man away by expressing needy behavior. Additionally, advertising executive Benjamin (Matthew McConaughey) places a wager for the chance to win the opportunity to pitch on a new account where he must have a woman fall in love with him in the same amount of days.
Quite the set of circumstances to base a romantic comedy on, this feature gets right into the manipulation individuals can use to make them or at least present the illusion of love. We have the push and pull of Benjamin trying to win over Andie while she wants to prove the point she can drive him away. Both are completely unaware of what the other seeks to accomplish thus creating the feeding ground for some comedic hijinks but also in classic romantic comedy style, they will begin to get real feelings for each other.
Truly at the heart of this story lie two objectively terrible people. Two individuals who would go so far in manipulating another person for the sake of some personal gain. A level of selfishness and disdain for your fellow human to treat them in such a manner and without fair warning. This allows for an intriguing conversation on which mission should be classified as worse between the two. Whether making someone fall in love with you or doing everything in your power to have them break up with you does more damage certainly can carry some debate even if the first option, in my opinion, could cause a more detrimental impact. We get all of this out of the way and the sweetness of this story begins to release.
Amid the wager each of them has found themselves in, when they begin to connect in a more honest manner they strike up a great relationship. One with plenty of charm displaying the great chemistry between Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey as they start this all out with ghoulish intentions but create something quite beautiful in the end. The meeting of Benjamin’s parents came as the highlight of the story in the way for one moment, a genuine connection built between Andie and Benjamin’s family that could no longer deny what exists between them, which makes it difficult for her to complete her goal.
This chemistry they build ensures everything between them reaches its peak when we know eventually the truth will come out undoubtedly causing some trust issues between them. As with many romantic comedies, their live in this dream world where we do not have to worry about the long-term but you just know this couple will not last very long. They enter this relationship based on manipulative lies and there’s no way that the mistrust they hold for each other will not eventually tear everything down for them. However, no romantic comedy should receive judgment on the long-term viability of the relationship as most would suffer for it.
Also, something else that should be pointed out is the absurdity of these circumstances leading them to place these wagers. It boggles my mind to comprehend how Benjamin manipulating a woman into falling in love with him proves anything about his job as a marketing executive, which only gets more hilarious when we learn his horrible pitch. Evidently impressive to the other characters even if it makes no sense. Then you have Andie who dreams of writing some serious journalistic stories of some groundbreaking topics while also working for a women’s lifestyle magazine. This statement does not serve to demean these magazines but they have different goals in what they seek to provide their audience. Both of these individuals seemingly cannot succeed where they are professionally, which becomes further evident as the feature goes along.
While having some issues that glare and lose some shine off the central love story, the chemistry between Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey makes for such a fantastic pairing. For all of their faults, Andie and Benjamin prove to be intriguing characters to follow and when this feature hits its high points it absolutely soars allowing everything else to fall away.
Films with Josh 
