How to Be Single

"Amid generic rom-com fare - which, for the record, I’m not necessarily opposed to - lies the odd interesting angle. The Five-Year Engagement was pitched as a comedy about the journey between proposal and wedding (and coincidentally featured How to Be Single’s Dakota Johnson and Alison Brie billed 12th and 4th in the cast respectively); David Wain’s They Came Together sent up the genre hilariously; and Trainwreck saw Amy Schumer offer a more relevant, if hardly unconventional, rom-com. On paper, and as the title declares, How to be Single sets out to do something different, too, but unfortunately falls victim to the same formulaic clichés you’d think it would avoid."

"Never transcends its most sitcom-y instincts."

"Nothing here will blow you away—think of this one as taking baby steps away from what's formulaic."

"Feels reverse-engineered to justify its ending, which while admittedly gratifying, can’t accurately be described as happy. For that, it would have to be worth the contrivances, cliches and tedium that have gone before."

"Silly and fun until it wears out its welcome."

"Though Wilson is always reason enough to see a movie, she’s stuck here in a fluffball that plays like warmed-over subplots from "Sex and the City.""

"Much like its characters' romantic lives, How to Be Single is more enjoyable when it's being casual."

"A lot like its Jager-bombing, romance-seeking protagonists: Cute and goofy and kind of a mess."