Structurally, the film offers no surprises to anyone who’s watched more than about 10 films in their lifetime, and even this predictability is stretched thin. If the film’s message that only corruption can get you anywhere in the world seems less Hollywood than Prada, this is only on the surface. This also makes his eventual turnaround from class clown to go-to guy particularly unbelievable, transforming an hour of incompetence with two quick minutes of montage. This is tempered somewhat by Pegg’s own natural affability, but he’s hard to care about much, mostly because there’s no reason the viewer should. Where How to Lose differs from its predecessor is that, while Hathaway’s character is enjoyable and ultimately succeeds through maintaining her ethics, Young is pretty much an insufferable jerk all around who ends up succeeding only when he sells out completely. But due to incompetence and a general unlikeability, he has a hard time getting anywhere and seems destined to return home without fulfilling his dreams of writing about the stars. He attracts the notice of famous editor Clayton Harding (Jeff Bridges), whose first magazine was in the same vein, and is offered a job writing for Sharp, a clear stand-in for Vanity Fair. Instead of Anne Hathaway playing a young and determined writer, How to Lose features Simon Pegg as Sidney Young, British pseudo-equivalent running a small Spy-esque magazine falling on hard times. How to Lose Friends & Alienate People is the dark twin of 2006’s The Devil Wears Prada.
Studio/Run Time: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 110 mins. Starring: Simong Pegg, Kirsten Dunst, Megan Fox, Gillian Anderson
Writers: Peter Straughan (screenplay), Toby Young (book)
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