PRINTMovie Review: What's Your Number?
Anna Faris search for love brings more laughs than romance
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October 1, 2011 | 12:50 p.m. CST
After watching Mark Mylod’s What’s Your Number?, one message is painfully clear: stick with your strengths. The director, who typically works with TV shows, had a hard time delivering anything but laughs — and he has Anna Faris to thank.
The story begins with the main character Ally Darling (Faris) losing her boyfriend and her job all in one morning. On the subway home, she reads a magazine article and learns two things. First, the average number of lovers a woman has in her lifetime is 10.5. Second, 96 percent of women who have been with more than 20 lovers cannot find a husband.
Related MovieThis prompts Ally to start counting.
With a total of 19, Ally is determined to save her “last shot” for her future husband, but that plan is quickly derailed after several drinks — which she ironically uses to toast to better decision-making and follow through.
To avoid upping her number, Ally turns to her exes, hoping that they’ve gotten better with time. The remainder of the film is a crazy quest to track down the ones that got away.
Of course she can’t go it alone, and she manipulates her neighbor Colin (Chris Evans) to help her.
The rest of the plot, and even a few of the lines, are so predictable that you’ll think you’ve seen this rom-com before.
Any attempt at drama or sentimentality comes off as forced. Even the chemistry between the two leading roles is lacking and a bit awkward. There’s far more raunch than romance.
But Faris knows her way around a joke, and in the end it’s the quirky humor that makes this movie worth the ticket price.
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