What's Your Number?,
directed by Mark Mylod
(20th Century Fox, 2011)


I don't watch a lot of rom-com films, but every now and then one just hits the spot. Except in rare cases, there's a certain formula you know to expect, so the success of a rom-com rides largely on the snappiness of the humor and the appeal of the stars.

What's Your Number? wins on both counts. Sure, I like the male lead, Chris Evans (aka Captain America), but let's be honest, I'd watch almost anything with Anna Faris in it because she's so relentlessly adorable. I mean, seriously.

In this film she's Ally Darling, a 30-something who has just ended a relationship and is feeling out of sorts as she helps plan her younger sister's wedding. To make matters worse, she's read a magazine article that convinces her that anyone who's had sex with more than 10 people is a slut (she's slept with nearly 20), and she believes another study that suggests a woman who has had 20 sexual partners will never marry. After a drunken misstep with a former boss, she resolves to never have sex with a new partner; she decides that one of her previous 19 must have been the one.

She enlists the help of Colin Shea (Evans), a neighboring lothario, to help her track down her past boyfriends. (Among them, amusingly enough, is "Disgusting Donald," played by Faris's real-life husband, Chris Pratt.) But encounters with old beaus -- played by the likes of Martin Freeman, Andy Samberg, Thomas Lennon, Anthony Mackie and Dave Annable -- fail to bear fruit.

Of course, you know all along Ally and Colin are going to fall in love by the end. There's no surprise there. But still, they give Faris an entertaining montage during which she tries to track Colin down at every wedding in Boston even though, as she realizes by the end, it would have been easier to wait at his apartment.

Regardless, the journey is entertaining. The two leads are so very cute together and, let's face it, there's something magical about watching Faris play strip horse in the Garden.




Rambles.NET
review by
Tom Knapp


3 June 2017


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