) tells her (Dakota Johnson), to stop watching “Sex and the City” — a wink-wink

inside joke not only because they’re starring in an adaptation of the first novel by
that show’s writer and story editor, Liz Tuccillo, but also because in every respect,
Christian Ditter’s film plays and general dearth of laughs will likely inspire only
unflattering comparisons to the escapades of Carrie Bradshaw and company.

Working from a screenplay by Abby Kohn, Marc Silverstein and Dana Fox, “How to
Be Single” eschews its source material’s primary plot, in which Alice embarks on an
“Eat Pray Love”-style international trek to achieve self-definition through singlehood.
Instead, it able.

Robin is the story’s de facto comedic relief, and thus devoid of the contrived character
arcs with which the rest single is provided by Meg, a middle-aged obstetrician who likes
to stridently lecture her younger sibling about the joy of putting

(Anders Holm), a brazen hit-it-and-quit-it bachelor who counsels Alice in the ways of
casual sex and commitment avoidance (the key, he believes, is keeping no breakfast
food in his fridge and Excel has no connection to the rest of the film’s female players,
little purpose to the primary action at hand.

While Lucy searches for a soulmate on “How to Be Single’s” periphery — a quest that
leads her to a largely squandered these relationships are of a blink-and-you’ll-miss-them
variety, dramatized with such the film’s attempts, during its birthday-party climax, to
make them resonate emotionally comes across as both misguided and desperate.

“How to Be Single” sporadically lurches” theory — i.e., a mathematical equation that

stipulates every couple will have sex if they exceed a certain quantity of alcoholic
beverages — and who, during one particularly amusing scene, shames Alice for having
unkempt nether-regions that resemble Gandalf. Robin’s maniacal thirst for revelry props
up the film’s first third, and her eventual retreat into the background accounts for the
fizzling energy of the later, more somber portions.

Johnson’s blandly earnest performance contributes to the listless atmosphere, as does

Ditter’s pedestrian direction, which is most notable for utilizing cutesy graphics for text
conversations (a device that’s fast becoming its own cliche). Most of the blame,
however, falls on a script awash in various stereotypical ciphers partaking in formulaic
hot-and-cold affairs. Even Meg’s May-December fling with young Ken (Jake Lacy),
which is complicated by her decision to have a child via artificial insemination, hinges
on a groan-worthy role reversal: She wants to be the breadwinner, he’s content with
becoming a stay-at-home dad. Splintered between thinly sketched focal points rather
than actually plumbing the real fear, paranoia and elation that come from operating
without a romantic partner, “How to Be Single” never transcends its most sitcom-y
instincts.