Girls, wanna know how to lose a guy in 10 minutes?  Take him to see this film – there’s your answer!  Ok, I’m being a little harsh perhaps, but at the advance screening I attended, 90% of the audience were female and they all seemed to be laughing.  I was not.

The fat-fetched plot is based on a novel (believe it or not).  Andie Anderson (Hudson) works for a columnist for Composure Magazine.  She wants to use her journalism degree to cover more cutting edge topics (such as religion and politics) but her editor demands she concentrate on fashion, gossip and other trashy news.  Inspired by a friend’s broken relationship, her latest column is to be titled “how to lose a guy in 10 days”.  She’s going to meet a guy, have him fall in love, then do everything wrong to make him break it off.  The results will all go into print.

It’s time for Ben Barry (McConaughey) to enter the frame albeit under strange circumstances.  He works at an advertising company and with his all male team, is competing against an all female team within the office to impress the boss and secure the chance to produce a marketing campaign for a leading diamond seller.  The adverts are to appear in Composure Magazine.

The female team are visiting the Composure offices on business and overhear the idea for Andie’s column.  Then comes that one-in-a-865-billion moment.  The female team are having a meeting with the boss in a club to impress and pitch ideas.  Ben crashes the meeting to prove he also has what it takes.  By fluke, the conversation turns to love and the fact Ben thinks he can make any woman fall in love with him.  Lo and behold, Andie walks into the club at the exact same instant looking for the man to use as her subject.  One of the female team sees her, and has the idea for a bet.  Knowing Andie’s intentions, she bets Ben that he can’t make her fall in love with him in 10 days.  At stake is the choice of which team will get the diamond contract.

It goes on from here in a rather predictable fashion.  These characters are all spoilt brats and deserved to be smacked up and live a life of misery.  This of course will not happen but I can only dream.  This script could very well be the most unadventurous of 2003.  I’ll concede some chemistry develops between stars Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey towards the end but it is all too late.  My attention span was long finished by then.

With the film being classed in the romantic comedy genre, you’d think there’d be some “comedy”.  All the jokes are pathetically obvious and set up by stupidly unrealistic plot developments and lame acting. The laughter that kept echoing in my theatre was a little confusing.  Either I wasn’t getting it or those around me were just dumb suckers.  I won’t offend further but you know the answer.