Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell are two very visually attractive people in a current day and age where not every movie seems to follow the romantic comedy trend of two good looking people falling in love. So ANYONE BUT YOU feels like a bit of a throwback to the 80s and 90s comedies with a little bit of a touch of the politically correct.
What’s fun about the movie is that even though we clearly know that Ben (Glen Powell) and Bea (Sydney Sweeney) are going to be together by the time the credits roll, the charm is in the journey where the two find themselves travelling to Australia to attend Bea’s sister’s wedding. The two then find out they have to pretend to be together because there are a lot of romantic characters coming in and out of the picture. Wackiness ensues.
Even though a lot of this feels familiar and there’s a bit of political correctness to everything, the movie still greatly satisfies and has some really big laughs at times, and is also surrounded by a really strong supporting cast around the two leads. It’s always a treat to see Bryan Brown in a movie and he hams it up here, and the married couple also have a strong sense of humour. A lot of this is thanks to filmmaker Will Gluck (EASY A, FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS) who really knows his way around the screwball comedy. It looks great and has a really fun soundtrack, and I had a lot of fun watching this again.
About the Blu Ray:
This is a nice and even somewhat surprising HD transfer from Sony. The movie was shot using the Arri Alexa digital camera and has a really bright and colourful look which is well represented in high-definition. Though a 4k version exists to buy on Apple, Google Play and the like, this Blu Ray looks really as close to the theatrical version and very 4k quality, so I’m pretty satisfied. The soundtrack is in DTS Master Audio with most of the surrounds saved for the music songs/needle drops in the movie with an otherwise front soundstage. Nothing really else to note on the A/V here, which is a very satisfying overall presentation.
There are some additional features here that are mostly tuned to production featurettes along with some bloopers and deleted scenes, the latter of which I just skipped. Not included is the post-screening clip with additional behind-the-scenes entitled the “Valentine’s Day Encore”, but it was mostly just throw-away and is spread across some of the features here. What would have been a great addition is a commentary track with Sweeney and Powell who seem like they had such a great time together on screen.
Overall this wouldn’t be a must have disc to put on my shelf, but ANYONE BUT YOU is such a charmer that I couldn’t resist while watching.
ANYONE BUT YOU is now available on Blu Ray along with all digital platforms. Our thanks to Sony PR for sending along a copy for review.