Sunday, 19 October 2008

Review of the 2008 film 'How to Lose Friends and Alienate People'.

Having enjoyed the last two Simon Pegg films I saw, I expected to also enjoy this offering from the British comedy star. While I cannot say that 'How to Lose Friends and Alienate People' is even in the same league as 'Sean of the Dead' or 'Hot Fuzz', it was an enjoyable dig at both Hollywood star lifestyles and sycophantic journalists.

Simon Pegg plays Sidney Young, writer and editor for a failing magazine. He goes to great efforts to get his scoops, and is rarely rewarded. His writing style is sarcastic, bitter and altogether far too honest for most of Hollywood. When he gets a job offer from Sharp's magazine in New York, he thinks he's made it, but he rapidly realises that to succeed, he will have to give up on his honesty and start boot-licking with the best of them.

Simon Pegg has long-since proven his comedy acting ability, and I did enjoy his portrayal of Sidney as the slightly obnoxious English journalist. While he is a jerk at times, and definitely clueless, hapless and clumsy, he does come across as also being likeable to a sympathetic audience. I also found that Kirsten Dunst was better in this film than in many I have seen with her in, with the obvious exception of Claudia in 'Interview with the Vampire' which remains her greatest preformance to date.

Aside from these two characters, there are some other fantastic roles. The magazine owner, Clayton Harding, is fantastically acted by Jeff Bridges. He starts out as a cynical businessman who will play nice and kiss-ass to keep his magazine at the top... but Sidney alludes to his roots writing a sarcastic comedy celebrity magazine, similar to the one that Sidney used to write for. As the film progresses, it becomes clear that Harding hired Sidney through nostalgia for his honest journalism. This character development and interest is one of the most interesting part of the film.

The plot is reasonably predictable, and at any point most people could probably suggest the next plot development, but even so I found this film entertaining and very amusing. It had comic jokes and a large quantity of slapstick, and often it's humour was of the more painful variety, but even so I did enjoy myself at this film.

I wouldn't recommend you go to see this film with expectations that it will be as good as Sean of the Dead or Hot Fuzz, and if you are flat against humour-of-embarassment, it's probably something you should miss. However, if you are looking for something to entertain you of an evening, I can think of many worse films.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oddly enough, I've never been desperately impressed with Sean of the Dead, but I did enjoy this film.

It also enjoys the distinction of being the only decent film around at the moment...