Film / Anyone but You

Anyone But You

"Here's much to do with hate, but more with love."

— The film's Epigraph quoting William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

Anyone but You is a 2023 American Romantic Comedy film starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell. It is directed by Will Gluck, from a screenplay he co-wrote with Ilana Wolpert, loosely based on Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare.

Bea (Sweeney) and Ben (Powell) are two attractive singletons who have a terrific first date but then have a falling out the following morning that leads to an immediate break up, each blaming the other. The two would gladly have nothing more to do with each other but they find themselves independently guests at the same wedding in Australia - Bea's sister Halle (Hadley Robinson) is engaged to Ben's friend Claudia (Alexandra Shipp). Matters are further complicated by the presence at the wedding of Bea's ex-boyfriend Jonathan (Darren Barnet) and Ben's ex-girlfriend Margaret (Charlee Fraser).

The film also stars GaTa, Michelle Hurd, Dermot Mulroney, Bryan Brown, and Rachel Griffiths.

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This film provides examples of:

• Adaptation Title Change: Anyone but You is a modernised adaptation of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.
• Age-Gap Romance: It's commented a few times that Ben and Bea have a significant age difference, as Bea's a law student in her 20s while Ben is a Goldman Sachs employee in his 30s. Ben tries to pass himself off as being in his late 20s but no one is buying it. In real life, Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney are 9 years apart.
• Bad "Bad Acting": Pete and Roger once again try out a staged eavesdrop with Ben to get him and Bea to reconcile, but Ben doesn't fall for their ruse this time and angrily tells them to stop, saying he no longer knows "what's real and what's not".
• Bait-and-Switch: The scene where Pete acts as the pastor asking if anyone is opposed to Halle and Claudia getting married, Bea's father Liam says he is. At first, he's portrayed as homophobic because of it...until he actually asserts that he won't let it happen unless their friends and family are invited as well.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Bea and Ben are very vocal about their dislike for each other but everyone around them can see they still have sparks. Their friends and family attempt to get these two stubborn idiots together.
• Best Friends-in-Law: By the end of the movie, Bea and Ben are successfully paired together and Ben's very good friend Claudia is married to Bea's sister Halle.
• Beta Couple:
  • Claudia and Halle, whose wedding is the entire reason Bea and Ben have to put up with each other (Claudia is one of Ben's closest friends and Halle is Bea's sister so they both have to be at the wedding despite the awkwardness.) In contrast to Bea and Ben who are outright hostile to each other Claudia and Halle have a very affectionate relationship despite their differences, with Claudia being uptight and something of a control freak while Halle is more carefree and playful. However under the stress of Bea and Ben's prickliness with each other even this relationship starts to show cracks and the two get into a nasty argument right before the wedding is to start, forcing Bea and Ben to call a truce and calm things down. Claudia and Halle later reveal the 'argument' was entirely staged as part of the plan to get Bea and Ben together.
  • At the end of the film, Jonathan and Margaret, Bea and Ben's exes.
• Betty and Veronica:
  • Ben is the Betty, Jonathan the Veronica (as Bea's parents repeatedly try to get them back together), and Bea is the Archie. Although for their different personalities and how long they have known Bea, Jonathan would be accurately the Betty to Ben's Veronica.
  • The shy, clumsy but good-natured Bea is the Betty to Margaret who is the more wild, adventurous and sexually active Veronica, with Ben as the Archie.
• The Big Damn Kiss: Bea and Ben have a very passionate and intimate one at the Opera House when he goes to comfort her there.
• Both Sides Have a Point: Ben is right to be upset that Bea unceremoniously left after they spent the night together without as much as leaving her number or a message and Bea is right to be upset by Ben insulting her.
• Brainless Beauty: Margaret's boyfriend Beau is a muscular and handsome surfer and swimmer and a friendly bloke but he seems to have very little going on upstairs besides water sports, sex and incomprehensible Australian slang.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • When Beau sees Ben dive to save Bea after she fell in the water, he blissfully assumes that they're continuing their reenactment of Titanic and compliments their commitment to it despite that everyone pointed out that she fell by accident.
  • When Ben dives off the cliff—so that when Harbor Patrol rescues him again, he can get them to take him to Bea at the Opera House, Leo misinterprets it as thinking he's getting another diving lesson and then tries to dive off himself—with everyone immediately rushing forward to hold him back.
• Creator Thumbprint: It's not the first time that a song by Natasha Bedingfield is integral to the plot of a Will Gluck movie, although this film takes it up to eleven if the end credits montage is anything to go by.
• Cute Clumsy Girl: Bea is decidedly accident prone. Over the course of the movie she manages to soak her jeans in water by accidentally turning on a sink tap, nearly burn herself moments later trying to dry said jeans on a hand dryer, get a sleeve of her blouse trapped in an airplane seat while trying to steal a cookie and falls off the deck of a boat into Sydney Harbour while she and Ben are trying to recreate the "King of the World" scene from Titanic (fortunately she can swim).
• Discriminate and Switch: Bea and Halle's father seems like he's objecting to Halle and Claudia's marriage because both are women or because they're an interracial couple, but it's just the joke opening to their destination wedding.
• Double-Meaning Title: In addition to being taken from the song title, refers not only to how Bea and Ben are so frustrated and angry with each other that they each think they'd be "rather be with anyone but you", but also how they actually share such a strong connection with each other to the point that they each think they "wouldn't want anyone but you".
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: When Bea proposes the scheme to Ben to make everyone think their plan to trick the two into sleeping with each other has worked in order to solve their respective problems, he dismisses it and says that they couldn’t convince anyone they actually like each other, to prove her point she starts pretending to seduce him and leans in as if to kiss him only to instead hit him in the groin, while it’s Played for Laughs if the roles were reversed most people probably wouldn’t find it as funny.
• Fanservice:
  • Both leads are great looking and the film is not shy about using this. In one scene in particular a panicked Ben strips naked after finding a spider in his shorts and while Bea doesn't have any specific scenes like this, she is in a skimpy swim suit for much of the film and all of her 'normal' clothes display impressive necklines, so much so that one character even refers to her in cod-Shakespearean as the "plump chested one with the sad eyes.".
  • Ben's old girlfriend Margaret and her new boyfriend Beau are also ridiculously good looking people and the movie goes to great lengths to show it, such as Margaret ripping off her dress to put out a fire on a floral arrangement.
• Gender Flip: Claudio from the original play becomes 'Claudia' in the film, which also counts as Race Lift and Adaptational Sexuality as Claudia is an African-American and a lesbian.
• Genre Throwback: The film is a throwback to and attempt to revive the frothy, feelgood big screen romantic comedies of the 1990s and early 2000s, especially those like 10 Things I Hate About You that likewise draw on Shakespeare and other classic literature.
• Ironic Echo: The look into each other's eyes of resentment and disappointment Bea and Ben share during the wedding is sharply contrasted later by the immensely loving look into each other's eyes up close at the reception that night.
• It's All About Me: Claudia openly voices her concerns about Bea and Ben's conflict ruining her wedding with Halle and is anxious that this ends as soon as possible. After the confrontation between Bea and Ben, resulting in the wedding cake getting ruined, Claudia angrily discusses the incident with Halle, who accuses her of being more worried with the wedding's planning, asking her "Are you marrying me or your itinerary?" However, Halle and Claudia reveal they have staged the argument as a last push to get Bea and Ben together.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • While Ben might not be a saint and insulting Bea was rather disproportionate, his anger that she unceremoniously left him after spending the night together is totally natural and understandable.
  • Claudia may also be a bit of a jerk and entitled to having her perfect wedding with Halle, but she's not totally wrong in pointing out that Ben and Bea's feud may probably threaten the celebration. No wonder why she and her family (Halle included) came up with the plan to make them like each other.
• Kindhearted Simpleton: Beau is a very friendly and cheerful guy who isn't very knowledgeable about anything besides surfing, water sports, and sex. And playing the cello at the end. Hidden Depths indeed.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Played for Comedy, While on a plane heading to Australia, Bea notices a cookie next to a sleeping Ben (who had been previously annoying her after they boarded) rather than leave well enough alone, she decides to steal the cookie, this results in her ending up in a comedically suggestive position which is noticed by one of the other people on the flight.
• Like Brother and Sister: Ben and Claudia since the former was the best friend of the latter's brother Pete growing up have also had an incredibly close-knit relationship over the years as a result to the point that the bond of feeling like siblings themselves is definitely there between the two—especially with Ben having Belligerent Sexual Tension with Bea and Claudia about to marry Bea's sister Halle as well.
• Meaningful Name: When Bea is updating her LinkedIn profile to show that she's dropped out of law school, it's revealed that her full name is Beatrice Messina. Messina is the city where Much Ado About Nothing takes place.
• Morality Pet: Pete is this for Ben.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Ben has one when he overhears Halle and Claudia arguing about their wedding being ruined because of his and Bea's bad blood with each other. He convinces Bea to pretend to apologize for all the trouble they caused lately, promising them they will behave even if they still hate each other for the sake of their special ocassion. At the end, Halle and Claudia reveal that this was yet another scheme to finally get them together.
• Naked People Are Funny: Ben's nude scene when he strips off his clothes out of fear of a spider on his shorts is Played for Laughs. There is also a scene where Beau casually showers naked and banters with a very awkward Ben who is waiting to have a shower.
• No Antagonist: In contrast to the original play there is no real villainous character in the film; most of Ben and Bea's family and friends are actively trying to get them together and while Bea's mother and father are clearly pushy and trying to meddle in her professional and romantic life they are still presented as generally decent. Even Margaret and Jonathan, who want Ben and Bea respectively and are thus in opposition to the leads possibly getting together are not vilified by the story and they get together in the end with each other. Rather the romantic complication is the lingering hostility Ben and Bea have towards each other after their first date ends on such an angry note.
• No Full Name Given: None of the characters have their full names explicitly mentioned, nor are they listed in the credits. The only exception is with Bea and Halle whose last name is shown to be Messina as shown when Bea is editing her LinkedIn profile after returning from the beach.
• One Head Taller: At 5'11", Ben is a head and then some taller than the 5'3" Bea, even when she is in high heels, making several jokes about how short she is, leading her to fire back at one point:
  Bea: "You are not tall enough to say that about me."
• Spiders Are Scary: While out hiking Ben discovers an enormous spider in his shorts (or rather Bea finds it for him). He is absolutely terrified and immediately tears off all his clothes just in case.
  Ben: "Spiders hunt in pairs! They hunt in pairs!"
• Summer Romance: The entirety of Ben and Bea's romantic affair takes place in the Summer in the Southern Hemisphere since they're in Australia during December.
• Out-of-Context Eavesdropping: Ben expresses his anger to Pete at Bea ditching him without a word, and Bea, who regretted what she did, walks in just in time for Ben to call her "a mess and a nobody". Hurt by these words, Bea decides they have nothing to talk about. This is what initiates the conflict between them.
• Pair the Spares: After Bea and Ben get together, the ending also sees their exes Jonathan and Margaret becoming a couple as well.
• Parents as People: Bea's parents are very overprotective and even go as far to push her to reconcile with her ex Jonathan and meddle in her professional life, However, after finding out that Bea dropped out of law school and lied to them about it, they do not take it well. Later on, they actually acknowledge their flaw as parents and assure that all they want is for their daughter to be happy.
• Poor Communication Kills: This is why Bea and Ben’s first date ends badly despite their clear chemistry, Bea leaves before (she thinks) Ben has woken up without leaving a message or her number, Ben is understandably hurt and unaware that Bea has regretted this decision and is returning to his apartment, Ben then insults her to Pete to save face, which Bea overhears.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Bea tears into Ben for his arrogant demeanor with this one line.
    Bea: "That's the reason why you're alone, no one can trust you."
  • Pete calls Ben out for his fear of commitment.
    Pete: "Anytime something gets real, you run away, call yourself a fuckboy, makin' excuses and you just move on to the next."
• Romantic False Lead: Jonathan is this to Bea—though she's actually not wanting him back while her parents are wanting him back with her—and Margaret is this to Ben—in that Ben does want her back and putting on his charade with Bea is for both to work the means to those ends. Bea and Ben end up together together in the end though of course. Then a Pair the Spares connection brings Jonathan and Margaret together as well
• Shower of Love: Ben and Bea have one when they end up having sex.
• Staging the Eavesdrop: When most people in the wedding party decide to get Ben and Bea together, they resort to having loud conversations within convenient earshot of both of then to feed them the information they want.
• Time Skip: Six months go by between Ben and Bea's first date which ends so badly, and their second meeting when Claudia and Halle think they’re introducing them. Dialogue at the end of the movie indicates that the movie then jumps ahead an additional 18 months to the wedding^note During the climax of the film Ben mentions that it has been two years since he first met Bea.
• You Need to Get Laid: Almost everyone in both families, with the exception of Bea and Halle’s parents, concludes that the only way they will keep Ben and Bea from ruining the wedding with their fighting is to get them to fuck each other’s brains out.