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How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days

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How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
Theatrical release poster
Directed byDonald Petrie
Screenplay by
Based on
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
by
  • Michele Alexander
  • Jeannie Long
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyJohn Bailey
Edited byDebra Neil-Fisher
Music byDavid Newman
Production
companies
Distributed by
Release dates
  • February 7, 2003 (2003-02-07) (United States)
  • April 17, 2003 (2003-04-17) (Germany)
Running time
116 minutes
Countries
LanguageEnglish
Budget$50 million
Box office$177.4 million[2]

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is a 2003 romantic comedy film directed by Donald Petrie, starring Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey. It is based on a short comic book of the same name by Michele Alexander and Jeannie Long.

Plot

Andie Anderson (Kate Hudson) is a writer for the women's magazine Composure as the "How to", subject-matter expert. She is bored and wishes she could write about more serious topics. After Andie's best friend Michelle (Kathryn Hahn) experiences yet another break-up, Andie is inspired to write a new article titled "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days"; she will begin dating a man and drive him away within 10 days.

Simultaneously, advertising executive Benjamin "Ben" Barry (Matthew McConaughey) is looking to branch out from his usual remit of beer and sports campaigns, and lead a prestigious advertising campaign for a diamond company. At a bar, Ben's boss, Phillip (Robert Klein) questions whether Ben has enough insight into the romance typically associated with diamonds, and in response Ben wagers he could make any woman fall in love with him. His manager accepts the wager and says that if he can achieve this before an event that will take place in 10 days, he will allow Ben to lead the diamond campaign. Ben's rivals, Judy Spears and Judy Green (Michael Michele and Shalom Harlow), were at the Composure magazine offices earlier in the day and know about Andie's task. Seeing Andie at the bar, they pick her as the woman to be romanced by Ben.

Ben and Andie meet and soon start their quests, neither revealing their true intentions. Andie works hard to drive Ben insane and make him break up with her in order to complete her article, but Ben continues to stick around in hopes of making her fall in love with him. Andie gets Ben knocked out in a movie theater by talking aloud while watching a film, rapidly moves her things into his apartment, acts overly possessive and clingy, ruins his boys' poker night for him and his friends, and takes him to a Celine Dion concert when he was under the assumption he was going to see a New York Knicks basketball game.

Ben stays with her despite everything, and after coming very close to breaking up they attend couples counseling, led by Andie's friend Michelle. They agree, as a solution to their problems, to visit Ben's family in Staten Island for the weekend. While vacationing together Ben and Andie begin to form a genuine bond. Andie then tries to explain to her boss Lana (Bebe Neuwirth) that she cannot continue writing and publishing this article as she has "really got to know this guy", but Lana remains insistent upon it. Around the same time, Andie and Ben go to the company ball together where Phillip meets Andie and tells Ben that he "met her, she loves you, you win".

Seeing Ben's good news, Judy and Judy set about to sabotage him. They tell his close colleagues, Tony and Thayer (Adam Goldberg and Thomas Lennon), that Andie knew about the bet all along and was playing along to help Ben win. Tony and Thayer beg Andie to keep quiet, unwittingly making her aware of the bet. Almost simultaneously, Lana, who is unaware of Ben's role in Andie's "How To" article, reveals Andie's true intentions to Ben. Upon learning of Ben's bet, Andie attempts to humiliate Ben in front of everyone at the party, and the pair argue on stage.

They go their separate ways before Ben is shown Andie's article and encouraged to read it. She explains in it how she "lost the one person she ever fell for", and, when he hears she quit her job at Composure and is on her way to Washington, D.C. for an interview, he chases her taxi and stops her. Once he accuses her of running away, they reveal their true feelings for each other and the film ends with Ben instructing the taxi driver to return Andie's belongings to her home, and then they kiss.

Cast

Production

Gwyneth Paltrow and director Mike Newell were originally attached to the project but producer Lynda Obst was unable to get Newell to commit to a date and Paltrow went on to work on the film View from the Top.[3]

The yellow gown Kate Hudson wore in the movie was created by Carolina Herrera along with the film’s costume designer. The necklace she wears with the yellow gown is called, in the film, the "Isadora Diamond" named after Isadora Duncan. The 80-carat yellow diamond in the necklace was designed by Harry Winston and is worth $6 million.[4]

The apartment interiors were conceived by Yeadon born sculptor Zoë Waterman, who said she thought the characters should live in "spaces which I consider to be dream spaces. That is to say their apartments are as close as I've seen on screen to my dream apartment. I just said to myself 'where would I absolutely love to live in my wildest dreams?', and the whole design came together in about fifteen minutes."

Release

Critical response

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days received mixed reviews from critics. Metacritic gave the film a score of 45 out of 100, based on 31 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[5] Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a rating of 42%, based on 150 reviews, with an average rating of 5/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson are charming together, but they can't overcome How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days' silly premise and predictable script."[6]

Box office

The film was released on February 7, 2003, and earned $23,774,850 in its first weekend. Its final gross is $105,813,373 in the United States and $71,558,068 internationally.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003)". American Film Institute. Retrieved January 4, 2019.
  2. ^ a b "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days". Box Office Mojo. 2003. Retrieved 2011-01-11.
  3. ^ EW Staff (February 7, 2003). "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days". Entertainment Weekly.
  4. ^ Malkin, Marc S.; Schoeneman, Deborah (February 6, 2003). "Model Home Gets a Makeover". New York. Retrieved May 29, 2021.
  5. ^ "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days". Metacritic. Retrieved 2011-01-11.
  6. ^ "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2020-04-19.
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