“True or False: All’s fair in love and war.”
Andie Anderson, played by Kate Hudson, poses this question in “How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days.” Hudson plays a journalist writing a story exploring the Universal dating don’ts set down by Michele Alexander and Jeannie Long in their book of the same title.
Along with Hudson, the cast includes Matthew McConaughey and a catty Michael Michele as advertising agency reps after the same diamond account. Michele challenges McConaughey’s ability to sell to women. To prove his knowledge of women, they make a bet and he has 10 days to make a woman fall in love with him. If he wins, the account is his. Andy and Ben met and the fun begins.
Ben turns on the charm and the Marvin Gaye to hook Andy. Andy and Ben are relentless in their pursuit of driving each other mad. Whether it is madly in love or just plain mad, their clever tricks and mind games are fiercely entertaining. She tries various tactics to get Ben to dump her. She baby talks and fills his medicine cabinet with feminine products. She even tries to name his member “Princess Sophia.”
“Call it Princess Sophia, you can take a man out the mood,” McConaughey told E! News. Hudson felt a more appropriate name could be “Hammer.”
Stubborn and undeterred from their goals, the two attend couples therapy. SNL veteran Ana Gasteyer plays Andy’s friend and faux therapist. What happens next puts an interesting twist in the plot.
The movie opens Feb. 7 nationwide. The book, “How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days: The Universal Don’ts of Dating,” is available from Bantam Books. Alexander and Long are childhood friends from Tallahassee, Fla. Created with Danielle Hoover, this book tells women how they are losing their men.
Terry Dunbar, a political science sophomore, said females can do many things to drive a man away.
“I would get upset if someone I just met calls me 24-7 or tries to hang out with me all the time,” Dunbar said.
The book also adds crying at inappropriate times and hanging out with a man’s friends as ways to get dumped. The book is simple and uses cute crayon-type illustration to drive the points home.
The movie is an energetic, witty jab at relationships of the new millennium. The roller coaster ride of antics put forth accurately reflect dating’s voracious and war-like nature in a display of comedic genius.
While jabbing at the mistakes women make, the movie also parodies the absurd things men do to win over women. Ben misses several New York Knicks games, gets knocked out and allows Andy to blow his nose in front of his friends.
Viewers can learn a lot from the movie and the book about what not to do in the early stages of a relationship. As in the movie, most mistakes are made unconsciously, and if the relationship is meant to be, it will work out in the end. In the meantime, “How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days” offers comic relief to the wild world of dating.