Anyone But You, the new hit Rom-Com starring Euphoria’s Sydney Sweeny and Top Gun’s Glen Powell has had a pretty wild ride. Initially hit with waves of not-so-behind-the-scenes scandals, the early press for the film was then slowed by the SAG-AFTRA strike and some pretty negative audience responses to a leaked trailer. The general vibe going into the film’s release was that it was sure to be a flop, but then… it soared.
“Titanic me.” “What?” “Titanic me.” “Oh my god.”
So what was really going on with all of that so-called drama, and more importantly, how did the film manage to have such a huge comeback?! Let’s take a look at the scandal, the movie itself, and the real reason it’s managed to capture audiences’ hearts.
THE DRAMA, EXPLAINED
To get the full picture, let’s rewind back to the beginning for a moment. When the casting was initially announced for the film, everyone was excited at the thought of seeing Glen Powell back in a rom-com after the success of fan-favorite Set It Up; but people were kind of surprised to hear that he’d be starring opposite Sydney Sweeney. Up until this point, Sydney has pretty much exclusively been in comedy-dramas and straight up dramas.
“I have never, ever been happier!!!” Euphoria
But while a turn to a rom-com might have initially felt a little out of left field for the actress to some, it actually makes a lot of sense. She’s an in-demand young actress, so it makes sense to strike while the iron is hot and expand her wings as far as possible while she’s got Hollywood’s attention. Also, given the types of projects she’s worked on recently – from Cassie’s super intense arc on season two of Euphoria to her turn as Reality Winner in the crime drama about Reality getting interrogated by the FBI for leaking secret documents, it’s not surprising that Sydney might want to do something a bit lighter every once in a while. And rom-coms have been making a big comeback recently (which we’ll touch on later,) so this was actually kind of a perfect choice.
But, of course, when you get two hot stars in close proximity, rumors are going to start flying online, and that’s exactly what happened as filming began. Several of the movie’s scenes take place outside, and so were filmed outside, but this somehow led to some people assuming that the photos emerging were of Sydney and Glen themselves and not them playing their characters. It is a romcom, so they were getting pretty close and cutesy while filming, but this continued to get blown out of proportion every time a new set of images came out. Though there were some details that made it seem like maybe there was something going on, like Glen’s then-girlfriend Gigi Paris posting iconic Fleetwood Mac you-cheated-on-me breakup song Silver Springs to her Instagram stories. The scandal around the photos did lead to some weird press, with lots of people confused about if Sydney and Glen were actually sneaking around or if it was just a really bad attempt at PR for the film. It didn’t help that Cassie’s storyline in Euphoria’s second season saw her dating Nate, her best friend’s ex-boyfriend, and some audiences notoriously have a hard time separating actor’s characters from them in real life. And it turned out that Glen and Gigi really were breaking up at the time – just not, apparently, over Sydney but instead over the long distance required by their jobs. For her part, Sydney by all accounts remains happily engaged to her long-term boyfriend Jonathan Davino. She told Glamour, “I’ve never really shared that much [about my relationship], so the press loves to create drama in stories.”
Just as the first round of promo for the film was starting up, the Writers Guild and then SAG-AFTRA strikes began in Hollywood, and so the entire promotional tour came to a halt. Once things were back in motion, there were a few reshoots – which some people took as a sign that the film already had problems, but are actually a totally normal part of filmmaking. Things stayed pretty quiet until a trailer from the film leaked and people… didn’t love it. It felt less like a rom-com and more like a thriller or drama, making people even more confused about what this film was actually trying to be…
THE POWER OF ENEMIES TO LOVERS
Anyone But You ended up getting released Christmas weekend, and… didn’t really do that great. There wasn’t much fanfare around the release, and it came in fourth at the box office behind larger tentpoles like the new Aquaman movie. Rom-coms already have a hard time getting taken seriously and receiving the push they deserve from distribution companies, so it really seemed like that plus the drama surrounding the movie had sunk it. But then, instead of fading away, it went on to make more the next week, and even more the week after that. It turned out that not just being thrown onto streaming to be forgotten immediately and instead being released exclusively in theaters had given the movie some breathing room to actually find its audience via word of mouth. It’s so far managed to pull in over $150 million worldwide – and that’s before Valentine’s Day. The film managed to become a success by – surprise! – being something people actually enjoy watching!
Okay, but what is the film actually about? Joining the canon of ‘fun movies based on important historical works’, Anyone But You is loosely inspired by Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. From the names – Benedick and Beatrice become Ben and Bea – to the plot, the film seeks to tell this well-loved story in its own modern way. In the play, Benedick and Beatrice insult each other at a masquerade ball, causing their rift; in the movie, Bea overhears Ben shit talking her to his friend.
“That man does not have a heart.”
In both cases, the pair are brought back into each other’s orbit for a wedding – and thanks to the meddling of their friends who are desperate to get them together, both because they’re meant to be and because they’re incredibly annoying to everyone when they’re at each other’s throats.
The enemies-to-lovers trope has been a fan favorite for, well, centuries but has made a comeback in Hollywood in recent years, especially thanks to the success of Bridgerton’s second season.
“You are the bane of my existence and the object of all my desires.” Bridgerton
Bea & Ben’s chemistry is also elevated because their story is actually lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers – they nearly hooked up once before, had a spark that was snuffed out due to a misunderstanding, and are now rekindling the flame. They decide to set aside their mutual dislike and pretend to be dating to solve some personal problems – Bea’s parents wanting her to get back with her ex and Ben wanting to make his ex jealous. And surprise, surprise, during the course of pretending to be in a relationship, they actually start falling in love. But as with any good rom-com, they run into plenty more obstacles and moments of misunderstanding on their way to happily ever after. It’s watching them fight through all of their problems and come out the other side that makes the movie so fun. And Sydney and Glen’s chemistry, while it may have gotten them into a bit of hot water in real life, works great for the film.
While rom-coms still get derided as ‘unimportant’ or ‘junk food’ media, the genre has been making a comeback in recent years across film and tv. In addition to the mega-success of Bridgerton, the To All The Boys series and Set It Up (in which Glen stars alongside Zoey Deutch) became instant hits beloved by audiences. Rom-coms have also started seeing success on the indie circuit, with fan favorites like Rye Lane and Fire Island honing in on the things that make the genre so great while also expanding it beyond the stereotypes it’s been stuck in in the past (and that even Anyone But You itself falls into.)
“It was just this immediate, deep, palpable animal attraction – everyone in the room could feel it.” Rye Lane
It’s no surprise that people are drawn to the genre – times are chaotic and sometimes people just want to turn off their brains for a bit and watch two hot people fall in love for an hour and a half. There’s a loneliness epidemic so bad that the Surgeon General is worried about it, and people are desperate for personal connections, and watching a good rom-com can rekindle that spark in your heart that tells you that it is possible to find love out there.
“I know I am imperfect, but I will humble myself before you, because I cannot imagine my life without you…” Bridgerton
So while Hollywood might still be on the fence about if they should really go all in on this rom-com resurgence, it’s clear that audiences are all for it.
SHOULD YOU SEE IT?
After all of the talk of scandal around Anyone But You, it seems the only real on set drama came from a very different cast member.
“There are people on the set like soothing this spider, and it can only work for so many minutes at a time.” “It gives you this false sense of security that this thing is trained, and then it bites Sydney!” “It did?!” “Yes!” Sydney Sweeney and Glenn Howerton, Drew Interview
And as for all of the secret-dating drama – Glen eventually opened up about the fact that they did indeed choose to lean into the speculation to promote the film, kind of like their characters. But given that he was actually going through a tough breakup in real life, it ended up being kind of difficult for him. He told Business Insider, “I was with someone that I really loved and cared about and was trying to kind of make sense of a lot of stuff. It was a lot easier for Sydney to lean into something like that because she’s in a very committed and wonderful relationship and she’s very happy. So it was a little harder for me.” Co-stars pretending to have real-life chemistry to promote a film is nothing new, but it seems like in this case maybe they should have just let the on screen chemistry speak for itself…
At the end of the day, Anyone But You is not groundbreaking cinema by any means, but… it’s not trying to be. It’s a fun and cute couple of hours at the theater watching two pretty people fall in love. Though not everyone agrees – the film still has a pretty mid critic score on Rotten Tomatoes – it’s clear that rom-com fans are enjoying the movie for what it is. And hopefully this will lead to Hollywood creating more rom-coms, with a more diverse array of stories and casts, and, y’know, actually marketing them instead of just hoping people find them on a streaming service or happen to hear about it because of drama. Anyone But You won’t be changing the world, but it does add a little bit more fun to it, and there’s nothing wrong with that!
Have you watched the movie? If so, what did you think about it? And let us know: do you like enemies-to-lovers rom-coms or do you prefer a different central conflict?