Actor Simon Pegg, of Shaun of the Dead fame, and director Robert B. Weide, an Emmy winner for Curb Your Enthusiasm, thrive off of playing with ironic situations and awkward circumstances. So when the two teamed up for How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, it should have been a comic match made in heaven, right?
If only it were that easy.
Dismissing the more understated humor they so flawlessly brought to life in their previous, respective projects, Pegg and Weide delve into the broader world of crude jokes and slapstick comedy with How to Lose Friends & Alienate People.
And frankly, it’s difficult to understand why. Weide wastes Pegg’s talents terribly, handing the 38-year-old mostly campy gags about pigs, transsexuals and bodily fluids. From time to time, the script does give Pegg a subtle quip he turns into a quick laugh. But after those all-too-brief glimpses of what could have been, it’s back to watching him go to a club and absurdly dance like he’s having a seizure.
Loosely adapting the memoirs of the same title by Toby Young, scribe Peter Straughan (Mrs. Ratcliffe’s Revolution) changed the names and supposedly took significant liberties with the real-life storyline behind How to Lose Friends.
Pegg plays Sydney Young, the son of a renowned philosophy author and a respected actress. He, for some bizarre reason, aspires to be in a despicable profession requiring him to heartily feed off the work and antics of celebrities like a parasite. But that’s entertainment (journalism).
A struggling writer for Post Modern Review, an alternative magazine, Young gets his big break when a stunt he pulls at the British Academy of Film and Television Art awards catches the attention of Clayton Harding (Jeff Bridges, with a silvery mane in lieu of the shaved dome he sported in Iron Man), editor of the famed Sharps Magazine in New York.
Given a contract with the magazine referred to as “the nation’s window into high society,” Young moves across the pond and immediately starts learning about the world of celebrity correspondence from his boss, Lawrence Maddox (Danny Huston, John Adams), and his co-worker Alison Olsen (Kirsten Dunst, Spider-Man 3).
As Young discovers, however, covering celebrities is not the glamorous joy ride of simply enjoying parties and award shows he imagined. Instead, the politics of public image dominate the field, controlling his every move with little regard to his integrity as a reporter.
When the opportunity to get close to red-hot actress Sophie Maes (Megan Fox, Transformers) arises, even Young finds it difficult to adhere to his journalistic ethics. But as tempting as Maes’ lure is, the time Young spends with Olsen makes him question whether she is what he really wants, setting up a predictably sentimental plot thread.
To his credit, Weide does use his film as an amusingly satirical look at his own industry. Hip, new director Vincent Lepak (Max Minghella, Elvis and Anabelle) turns out to be a pompous prick who declares, “I am my role model. I want to be me.” Maes comes across as a dim-witted fool who is far too obsessed with her pet Chihuahua, but she still earns an Apollo Award for her leading role in a Mother Teresa biopic.
When the film lacks energy for long stretches, Bridges is the one cast member who always brings it back to life, stealing scene after scene while making the most of the few gems he has to deliver (“Just assume they’re all Jewish and they’re all gay,” he instructs Pegg about interviewing musical comedy stars).
The film carries an R rating, although it’s not entirely clear why it needs to. The restricted components just feel awkwardly out of place and don’t really add anything to the narrative. Maybe it was the scene where a transsexual stripper came to the office and showed some skin the filmmakers just couldn’t edit out.
What a loss that would have been.
tfloyd1@umd.edu
RATING: 2 1/2 out of 5 stars
