By. Sneha, Nancy & Puja

 

Hi there, it is Sneha, Nancy & Puja, the three singles at Sisters In Law Blog. We are bringing out a BRAND NEW collaborative series, Table For One. In this space we hope to bring you amusing anecdotes and insightful observations, tips, hacks, whatever about living the single life. This first column reviews the movie How to Be Single from the perspective of actual single women. We hope you enjoy!

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Disclaimer: We won’t get too spoilery with this review, we will do our best to alert you to avert your eyes.

First, the positives:

• Damon Wayans Jr. as David. Puja said she would watch an entire movie with him being a single dad and navigating through the feels his character is going through. Too bad he was mis- and under- used. What is David telling us about being single? That trying to erase a past is a lot of work and very painful, face it head on when you’re able and ready.

• Anders Holm as Tom. Well not the character, but the advice he gives. At one point he tells Lucy that women need to hear what a guy is saying not listen for what they want to hear.

That is it for positives. On to the negatives:

• Leslie Mann as Meg. Hey an actual professional woman with a job she is dedicated too. Not so fast. *SPOILER ALERT* She wants a baby because being single and a professional means she lacks something. (FFFFUUUUCCCCKKKK – Sneha). Oh and they threw in a younger man who really wants to be a stay at home dad. Nancy felt she should have stayed single. What does Meg tell us about being single? We can barely see around the baby thing, but Meg is most women in their mid to late thirties. You don’t waste time on things that are not right for you and just want something real. Meg teaches us to let your guard down and stop looking for the bad in things.

• Allison Brie as Lucy. How refreshing to have a woman with a good head on her shoulders who knows what she wants from a man and out of life. Too bad half the time she tries to make that man a “Prince Charming.” *SPOILER ALERT* We guess it is progress that the together woman doesn’t fall for the bad boy man-child and kept her head about her. How does Lucy tell us to be single? She doesn’t because she doesn’t want to be single. Be on every dating site, have a very rigorous filtration system and focus on a goal of getting married. Also she is the only one portrayed as not having other female friends. We don’t like things where women don’t have female friends. How do you get through the day without texting your BFF with a stupid emergency or asking for advice about leaning in and loving yourself? No woman is an island.

• Rebel Wilson as Robin. Puja wants to personally berate whoever wrote this character after eating a head of garlic. The only character embracing singledom and we don’t get to see how to be single from her. All we see are a parade of dad bod men (sigh, voluptuous women get hot men) she sleeps with because she is a party girl. How does Fat Amy Robin tell us to be single? Just hook-up with whoever, wherever and whenever; never the same dude twice. For the record, as long as you are safe, we have no problem with this. However if she is living her best life, maybe we should have just focused on her.

• Dakota Johnson as Alice. This bitch. Literally she is that friend who can’t be single; the one who disappears into ‘dicksand’ once she is in a relationship. Her scenes contain a lot of dialogue modeled after the advice in the book (We’re guessing; we didn’t read the source material). What does Alice teach us about being single? The shit we are supposed to know: be your own person (Meg), be comfortable in your own skin (Robin), know what you want out of life and go get it (Lucy), and do the things you want that will make you happy(every man in the film). We are annoyed that she had to be told this and went about it in such a clichéd way. Not all of us have the means to Eat, Pray, Love our way out of things( I can barely manage to get out of my own head – Puja).

We expected the movie to impart some advice on, we don’t know, How to be Single. Instead we get two characters who *SPOILER ALERT*  end up in relationships. And two who are single for very different reasons, one because she chooses it [“until it is time to get off the ride”] and one just trying to find out who she is as a person. Singledom seemed to be viewed as a temporary phase for these women, and not a permanent lifestyle. Ironic since over half of the United States is considered single.

Sneha’s Grade: C+

Nancy’s Grade: C

Puja’s Grade: D

WTF is Happening Here? – Just a place for stray observations

• Was it just us or were there times in the movie when the audience just sat there in stunned silence because whatever dickish thing was happening on screen happened to us before?

• How long was it before we found out the names of all the women? And also, like most self-help and relationship books, they only had first names, because women can’t be fully formed people in dating movies, we are generalized into types (the Meg, the Lucy, the Robin, and the Alice).

• Why are Leslie Mann, Damon Wayans Jr., and Anders Holm in this movie? Did they owe someone a favor?

• Would have killed someone to make any of these characters minority or LGBQT (since that is the only plausible reason why those POVs on singledom are ignored)?

• We all wanted to throat punch Josh by the end right? Gross bastard.