Best Romantic Comedy In Years Conquers Netflix

Anyone but You stars Syndey Sweeney and Glen Powell, who have an amazing first date together that ends badly. The two decided to pretend to be a couple to keep up appearances at a destination wedding while trying to hide their dislike of each other while simultaneously falling in love. The romcom is directed by Will Gluck, who also co-wrote the screenplay by Ilana Wolpert.

In addition to Syndey Sweeney and Glen Powell, Anyone but You also stars Alexandra Shipp, GaTa, Hadley Robinson, Michelle Hurd, Dermot Mulroney, Darren Barnet, Bryan Brown, and Rachel Griffiths. It is also a loose Shakespeare adaptation, drawing elements from Much Ado About Nothing. The film has already found financial success at the box office, with $219 million worldwide, and now it looks like it’ll be taking over streaming next.

While Anyone but You had relatively mixed reviews, there aren’t too many big marquee romcoms hitting theaters nowadays, so people definitely turned up in spades to check it out. It’s an overall solid film, and the chemistry between the two stars, both of whom are some of Hollywood’s most popular young stars, certainly helped to get more people to check it out. Ticket sales were also undoubtedly bolstered by Sweeney and Powell’s rumored off-screen romance, which the two recently admitted they fully played into.

Glen Powell talked about the marketing efforts for Anyone but You recently, saying, “The two things that you have to sell a rom-com are fun and chemistry,” adding, “That’s people wanting what’s on the screen off the screen, and sometimes you just have to lean into it a bit — and it worked wonderfully,” and, “Sydney is very smart. Sydney Sweeney was an executive producer on the film and was heavily involved in the flirty marketing that the film used to great effect, telling the New York Times that she was “on every call” for the film’s marketing in the lead-up to its release date.

Sweeney talked about her involvement further, saying, “ I was probably keeping everybody over at Sony marketing and distribution awake at night because I couldn’t stop with ideas,” and “I wanted to make sure that we were actively having a conversation with the audience as we were promoting this film because, at the end of the day, they’re the ones who created the entire narrative.” Sweeney was definitely right, as the marketing behind the movie drummed up tons of social media interest on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone even did a parody of an Anyone but You marketing spot for their own TV series, The Curse (which likely helped Anyone but You get even more attention).

While Anyone but You isn’t groundbreaking by any means, it’s still a fun watch with an escapist setting that should make romcom fans plenty happy. In the meantime, both Sweeney and Powell have expressed interest in making another movie together in the future, so perhaps this won’t be the first romcom we see from the two. While we wait to see what they do next together, you can check out Anyone but You streaming on Netflix now.