How to Be Single (2016) * *

Directed by:  Christian Ditter

Starring:  Dakota Johnson, Rebel Wilson, Leslie Mann, Alison Brie, Damon Wayans, Jr., Anders Holm, Jake Lacy, Nicholas Braun

Here is a movie with too many characters to juggle and subplots to resolve.    Characters act based on the needs of the script at the time.    A guy is nice, until he isn't.     A relationship is going great, until suddenly it isn't.     A woman is a sexaholic, alcoholic party animal, until she suddenly has a sensitive side.      When all is said is done, the main character winsomely learns "how to be single" and celebrates her triumph by visiting the Grand Canyon...alone.      Is the Grand Canyon the place where somehow everything in the universe makes sense?     Where people go to be at peace and resolve their inner conflicts just by looking at the giant hole in the ground?     Between the movie Grand Canyon (1991) and this film, it sure appears that way.

How to Be Single begins with Alice (Johnson) and her college boyfriend of four years "taking a break".     Alice wants to "find herself" even though she loves the guy and he loves her.     I think the ground rules are: Once she finds herself, they will get back together.     We are supposed to feel bad for her when this doesn't go as planned.      The boyfriend finds another girl, one who has apparently found herself already, and Alice is now single.     Her work buddy Robin (Wilson) takes her on a tour of the Manhattan clubs, dispensing advice such as "Don't pass your drink number" and "I don't even touch myself until I hit 24 drinks".      These girls are rarely seen without a beer or drink in hand.    In Robin's case, sometimes full bottles of champagne.    They may not find Mr. Right, but they find plenty of Mr. Right Nows, and are well on their way to full-blown alcoholism.   

Alice lives with her sister Meg (Mann), a workaholic, unmarried, childless doctor who, in keeping with the theme of this film, decides she wants a baby out of the clear blue.     Thoughts about their relationship nagged at me, like:  "Sisters?   Really?"     There is also another character named Lucy (Brie) who hangs around the bar below her apartment because it has free Wi-Fi.     She befriends the bartender Tom (Holm), who is as commitment-phobic as Robin, to the point that he doesn't keep anything edible in the fridge so conquests don't stick around for breakfast.     Tom and Alice become fuck buddies, but he falls for Lucy.    

Lucy has no connection to any of the other girls in the movie.     I could buy it if she were Alice's sister and not Meg, but this is not the case.     Her scenes seem dropped in from another movie filming nearby.    Brie is appealing, to be sure, but her character and all of the subplots attached to her are irrelevant.

This is the type of movie where characters apparently don't speak to each other at all unless they're on screen.      Plot developments curiously pop up because these people don't communicate well.     Meg hooks up with a boyfriend, but fails to tell him she's pregnant.      Alice hooks up with a real-estate developer (Wayans, Jr.) who is a single father, but neglects to tell Alice he's a widower until three months after their first kiss.     Aren't these things that should be brought up much sooner?    Does nobody ask questions, such as, I don't know, "What happened to her mother?" or "You look like you have a baby bump, are you pregnant?"    Instead, these relationship roadblocks are brought up only to facilitate contrived, phony breakups.   

The actors are appealing despite the shallowness their characters are saddled with.     Johnson shows, as she did in Fifty Shades of Grey, that she is likable, touching, and vulnerable.     Rebel Wilson is an energetic force who is perfectly content within herself.      Although I don't quite understand why she felt she had to hurl herself onto the hood of a moving taxi to flag it down.    Not once, but twice.  Normal people usually wave their hand and thus reducing the possibility of injury or death.   

I found myself not caring all that much.     I suppose we're supposed to be happy that Alice found herself at long last and everyone else finds their soul mates, or in Robin's case, a never ending party train, but I wasn't much moved.     How to Be Single isn't sure what type of movie it wants to be.    Does it want to be a party comedy?    A quasi-Sex and the City?    An earnest romantic comedy?   
Because it doesn't know, it bogs itself down.