Our review of How To Be Single!

As a single woman, venturing into How To Be Single with my single friends on Valentine’s Day was a bit of a struggle. There were fears etched into my soul that the movie would be about a girl who was single, found her true love, and then wasn’t single anymore and then I would leave the theater wallowing in self-pity over the sad truth that life is not like the movies.

Luckily, this wasn’t the case.

I was surprisingly thrilled by the movie. I wouldn’t say it’s an Oscar worthy picture, but it gives you everything you want in a Rebel Wilson (Pitch Perfect) and Dakota Johnson (50 Shades of Grey) chick flick. The jokes are amazing and it’s raunchy enough without being gratuitous. It’s also much more relatable than I expected: (spoiler alert) not every ending is happy; one guy doesn’t get the girl, the main girl’s ex boyfriend gets married to another girl. I LOVED that it wasn’t so cliché. A lot of my girlfriends said they could relate to specific characters and what they went through. I appreciated this because usually Chick Flicks are just…cute.

HTBS reminds me of Love Actually, where you follow a bunch of different storylines that are all connected and watch them connect and fall in love with different characters. This aspect of it was very cute, and I genuinely liked all of the characters. There was sweetness in them and you wanted them all to succeed and be happy.

In this society, being single is looked at almost like the plague. People always say, “oh no!” or “I’m sorry….” It kind of makes me feel like I should tattoo “single” onto my forehead so I can get the sympathetic looks over with. HOWEVER, this movie highlights that there are incredibly wonderful aspects of being single, and also that sometimes it’s much better than being in a relationship. It also highlighted how girls can lose themselves to boys, (using the metaphor of Dick Sand) because they want to be in love so badly. I loved how honest the movie was and I honestly felt better about my single life.

There were, of course, bad aspects to the movie. There were some jokes that didn’t land, and an awkward moment where Rebel Wilson kind of becomes a guru and leaves two women at the hospital with a very weird exit. There are moments that are highly predictable. However, if you’re having a Girls Night, it’s perfect. And men folk: totally take your girlfriends to this. They’ll enjoy it, and the humor is funny enough that you’ll enjoy it too.

I give this movie three out of five stars.