How to Lose Friends & Alienate People

Synopsis

This film is loosely based on a memoir of Toby Young’s struggles as an employee of a major celebrity magazine. Britain’s Simon Pegg (Hot Fuzz) plays Sidney Young, an aspiring celebrity journalist who is shockingly hired by an upscale magazine in New York City. Sydney’s job is to charm everyone, but instead he annoys and alienates everyone in this comedy.

Review

The only reason I even knew about this movie was because I saw the trailer during another film. I’m glad I did. This movie is ridiculous, but in a good way. I’m not saying everyone will find it as clever as I did, but it’s good fun where you can just chill with some popcorn, escape reality, and get some yuk-yuks in. How to Lose Friends & Alienate People – way too long of a title – delivers some British humor from the main star Simon Pegg (Hot Fuzz). He just comes with that “I don’t give a bleep” attitude and just gets himself in to all types of trouble. I just kept laughing and shaking my head and thinking, “Man, you are so stupid.”

Pegg stars as Sidney Young, a British celebrity journalist who wants to be on the inside and par-tee with the rich and famous circuit. He’s relentless with his outrageous attempts to gain access, and he fails with every attempt, even trying to sneak into a posh event with a pig. The oink oink gets loose, ruins the shindig and Sydney is promptly tossed out. Home dude knew he wasn’t supposed to be up in there, but I can't much blame him. Shoot, I know I want to walk that red carpet some day and be at the "par-tee" too. I said, "okay, let me get comfortable here." I was thinking that I might have some fun watching this flick after its opening—and I did.

Nowhere for Sidney to go but up, he gets a ring-a-ding-ding from Clayton Harding (Jeff Bridges, Iron Man), who is editor of New York City-based Sharps magazine AND happens to be the guy whose party was crashed by Sidney and his pig. Clayton wants Sidney to come and work for him. What??? Why he would hire this bumbling idiot is questioned by everyone at the magazine. Sidney is a British muddle of mess. He has no style of dress, having the nerve to wear a red t-shirt with some crass saying on it to work. He lacks finesse and comes off as a straight arse. But with all of his quirks, I still rooted for him.

One of Sidney’s jobs besides writing is to charm and jive the celebrities, but I don’t think it’s in him to kiss butt. He just speaks his mind to everyone, gets himself into trouble and looks like a complete fool when he does it. No one likes him, and he succeeds at alienating everyone except for his co-worker Alison Olsen, (Kirsten Dunst, Spiderman). Alison tries the best she can to show him how to fit in, even though he gets on her nerves too. As you would expect, Alison’s efforts to make Sidney a charmer, despite her disgust with him, lays the groundwork for some possible romance.

Pegg’s character was written and developed on point. He has his idiosyncrasies, outcast moments, his uprising, obstacles, aha moments, love and sex interests. All of these had me cheering him on. There were scenes that I felt embarrassed or nervous for Sydney because I didn’t want to see him get in trouble.

Jeff Bridges is good, as always. He adds chemistry to the cast. Gillian Anderson (X-Files) plays a powerful publicist and I didn’t even recognize her at first. She came out dressed sharp unlike her bland self in X-Files. Kristin Dunst is her usual raggedy self with her fly-away strands that are in serious need of professional help. Her sickly color needs a squirt of Mystic Tan, and that smile needs Dr. William Dorfman, the dentist who use to be on the Extreme Team from ABC's Extreme Make-Over. Ohhh, why do I do that? Did I just rip on Kristin? I know it's wrong of me, but I saw her a long time ago on Ashton Kutcher's show PUNK'D and she was NOT NICE. Forgive me ya'll. I'll work it out.

Anyhoo, How to Lose Friends gave me a good afternoon show. This one woman laughed at every little thing Pegg said or did. It's funny, but not every little tick of it. Well, get your laugh on anyway lady. I know I got mine on at times and wasn’t disappointed. It’s not the show stopper of the year, but its fun and if you are an Entertainment Tonight watching, US Weekly and People magazine reading person like myself, then this one is definitely for you. And if you're not, and you just want to chuckle and say, “Oh no he didn’t,” then you’ll like it too, but might want to rent it if you’re unsure.

My Rating ~ 3 Reels

Audience Rating (What's Yours?)