What’s Your Number? (*½)
Directed by: Mark Mylod
Starring: Anna Faris, Chris Evans, Ari Graynor, Blythe Danner, Joel
McHale, Andy Samberg, Zachary Quinto, Dave Annable, Martin Freeman, Chris
Pratt, Anthony Mackie, Ed Begley Jr.
Seen: October 19th 2011
*½ Out of ****
When Ally (Faris) reads an article stating that most women who sleep
with more than 20 men will find it hard to get married, she is astonished. Combine
this with her running into an old flame, Disgusting Donald (Pratt) (not so
disgusting anymore), she decides to stop her promiscuity and try and find her
other exes to see if one of them isn’t suitable as a life mate. All this to try
and keep her number below 20, so that she can stop feeling guilty about her
lifestyle.
Her neighbour Colin (Evans) on the other hand has no such plans, and
welcomes Ally’s proposal of him hiding in her apartment almost daily until his perpetual one-night stands
eventually leave. He sees it as “avoiding their feelings”, and as an informal
investigator of sort, Ally offers him asylum in exchange for him tracking down
her exes. What follows is a rather uninspired list of “re-dates”, displaying
Ally’s various dishonest portrayals of herself to be with that person. Self-esteem
problems anyone? I can only assume that these portrayals are supposed to be
funny, but at most they are amusing as Ally butchers her way through, among
others, Simon (Freeman) the Brit, for whom Ally adopts a British accent which
goes full Borat when she gets drunk.
Of course the two protagonists thrown together by circumstance (or in
this case bad morals and worse life decisions) fall for each other; and of
course something comes along to keep them apart, in this case Ally’s misguided
views about one of her exes in her attempts to not raise her number even
further. This all happens, but it’s almost a case of remembering it as a
by-note than a good exposition of plot points, an obligatory plot arch that is
dealt with in the most perfunctory of ways.
There are a few funny moments in the movie, as Anna Faris can turn a
joke to good effect sometimes, and seems to have mastered the odd and awkward
quite well. The girl is simply too awkward to be the leading lady in a romantic
comedy, but to her credit she does the squirming pretty convincingly. Chris
Evans brings a certain amount of charm, but his character is, when you stand
back a bit, too much of a sleaze-ball to really win votes. Blythe Danner and Ed
Begley Jr. as Ally’s parents are quite interesting and Ari Graynor as Ally’s
sister Daisy does what she should.
Only a very precious few movies have ever pushed an age restriction of
13LS as far as What’s Your Number?. I remember a line from John Travolta’s Be
Cool in 2005 that said for any movie to get a 13 age restriction, it can have no
more than one use of the F-word. This movie completely shatters that
presupposition, running wild with profanities that belong in the 16 age-restriction
class (American R-rating), and that doesn’t even take into account the subject
matter we’re exposed to, as well as the quasi-nudity flashed on screen from
time to time (always vaguely obscured). This movie is simply a rehash of recent
crass/gross-out comedies, and shouldn’t have seen the light of day.
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