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10 Days
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10 Days
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What's the Plot?
Andie Anderson (Kate Hudson) had dreams of becoming a serious journalist, doing political pieces and suchlike. Instead she's a " How To... " columist for the modern woman's magazine - Composure. Now Andie has been given a very unusual article to write by her boss, Lana (Bebe Neuwirth). She has to write about all the things that women everywhere do, inadvertently, that drive men away! The assignment sounds unusual but straight forward and simple. Except that she has to find a guy, get him to fall in love with her then make all the classic dating mistakes so that he'll dump her... All in just 10 days. Andie ends up with Benjamin Barry (Mathew McConaughey) who is also involved in a deadlined-work-releated battle. He must prove to his boss, Phillip (Robert Klein), that he can make a woman fall in love with him before a work party... Which takes place in 10 days time. As both circle around each other, locked in their secret games, something unexpected and work-threatening starts to happen - they both begin to fall for each other. If they continue, who will win and what will they lose in the process?
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The Review As " rom - com's " go, the plot for How To Loose A Guy In 10 Days playfully pushes the boundaries of believability to the limit. However, within it's absurd set-up there lies some interesting gems about relationships. Men and women alike should be able to respond / sympathize / cringe or at least acknowledge some of the tactics that Hudson's character uses to push the unrelenting McConaughey away. Whilst cooking a meal for her in his apartment, he leaves the kitchen to serve up the food to find that she has decorated his place in less than 10 minutes with cuddly toys, pink toweling for the toilet, cushions for the sofa and bed, and a medicine cabinet full of beauty and hygiene products.
He also gets a phone call from his mum who wants to speak to her even though they've only been out on 2 dates and both women have already discussed weddings and children and a makeshift wedding album has already been made! Hudson, who shook off her famous mum's shadow - Goldie Hawn - with her role as a groupie in Almost Famous has picked a role that her mother would have easily made her own back in the early 80's. Like her mother she has the right amount of quirkiness mixed with good looks to pull off the more Glenn Close / Fatal Attraction elements of her character when she becomes more and more desperate to force her man to dump her. |
McConaughey, who was originally labeled " the next big thing " when he first appeared on the scene, gets to show his everyday-nice-guy that worked so well in the under-rated ED-tv to good effect but the thing that lets all this down slightly is the lack of spark between the two that was so evident in the Bullock / Grant starrer Two Weeks Notice. They work well together but it's just a shame that they WORK instead of LOOK GOOD together. Director Donald Petrie handles the surprise-lite script easily, just as he did with Sandra Bullock's crowd-pleasing Miss Congeniality, but it's the nods of recognition from men and women audience members alike that make How To Lose A Guy... Worth seeing. Girls View
Boys View
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Copyright © Steve Murphy 2003
