Based on the book of the same name by Toby Young, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People feels like The Devil Wears Prada for the world of Celebrity fawning magazines. The story begins as Sidney Young (Simon Pegg), a party crashing young journalist, goes from an underground snarky celebrity magazine in England to a staff position at the most popular magazine in New York. As he maneuvers up the career ladder Sidney’s loud mouth and insensitivity makes him quick to piss people off hence the name of the movie.
Once the action starts the movie moves in two directions, one works to establish some kind of romantic story arc and the other follows the trials of working at the magazine where you have to stifle your artistic integrity to coddle celebrities that you want to feature in print. The magazine storyline is great and most of the substance and humor come from here, but the romantic arc becomes a torture once Sidney moves past the dream of bedding the rising starlet played by Megan Fox (Transformers). The problems I have with the film all lie in this portion of the story because it feels false and forced into the movie. It also isn’t helped along by Kirsten Dunst who was out of her league in the comedy setting.
The movie lives and dies with Simon Pegg who transcends the role and the story which is at times a bit cliché and overly reliant on slapstick humor to get laughs. When a scene hinges on anyone other than Simon Pegg it really falters, and I wish they had cast more capable comedy actors around him or at least spread the comedy around so Pegg didn’t have to deliver every funny line in the movie. If you can forgive Kirsten Dunst for the atrocity that was her role in the Spider-Man movies she isn’t all bad in this film. Personally I have a hard time forgiving and I really wish the role had been cast differently. The rest of the cast performs adequately, Megan Fox plays a vapid actress which she was born to play, Gillian Anderson (The X-Files) is a controlling talent manager, and the Dude himself Jeff Bridges (The Big Lebowski) shines in his few scenes as the owner of the magazine.
If you like Simon Pegg from his other films (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead) you’ll enjoy this film for all his antics, but I would temper your expectations for the rest of the movie. The romantic arc is weak and the ending felt tacked on and betrays the tone of the film to deliver the happy ending that wasn’t necessary or particularly satisfying. If you watch the film with these lowered expectations you should be entertained and may even laugh enough to justify a DVD purchase.
Special Features
The DVD comes with two commentary tracks with the director Robert Weide who has Simon Pegg join him for one. The Pegg commentary is funnier but the solo track is really interesting as Weide discusses his involvement in all the facets of the film’s creation. The other feature is a basic “Behind the Scenes” feature that isn’t very insightful but includes a lot of cast interviews where they profess love for one other. If you are a big fan you may want to track down an import because the UK release will have a few more features like a gag reel and some Simon Pegg webblogs.