How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

I’m tempted to say that the quickest way to lose friends and alienate people would be to recommend this movie… But that would be a cheap shot. It’s not that bad. It’s just a bit of a let down considering the talent involved and the buzz around Tony, sorry, Toby Young’s supposedly hilarious memoirs (I haven’t read them).

In case you missed the 80s revival, Young was one of Julie Burchill’s brat hacks, the editor of the Modern Review. More or less when that went belly up he took off for the big apple, taking a job at Conde Naste’s Vanity Fair. Which is when things started to go wrong – and when he started to gather material for his allegedly frank and funny book.

Produced by Working Title and directed by Robert Weide (Curb Your Enthusiasm), How to Lose Friends etc the movie plays down any potentially embarrassing resemblance to reality and plays up the lightweight farce and rom-com clichés. The heart sinks in the first five minutes when “Sidney Young” (Simon Pegg) tries to crash an A-list party with an incontinent pig (he claims it’s Babe).

Weide – who has never made a feature film before – seems to have directed everyone to overdo it, flail their arms about and “be funny” (well almost everyone – Jeff Bridges has never overacted in his life). Weide never misses an opportunity to add another egg to the pudding.

Not that Young and screenwriter Peter Straughan have supplied dazzlingly original material: there’s the clucking Jewish landlady (Miriam Margolyes), the chick with a dick, the starlet’s Chihuahua, the nice girl with the lousy taste in lovers… It’s one cliché after another. That’s not say it’s never funny, but for a movie based on a memoir it’s disappointingly routine.

The film is also stuck with a bifurcated point of view. It’s a culture clash comedy that wants to have it both ways: it’s an American movie about a loutish Brit, and a British movie about superficial Americans. The trouble is these two perspectives tend to cancel each other out. Young’s saving grace as a writer may be that he’s as hard on himself as he is on everybody else, but the movie might have worked better if the hero was wittier and more intelligent, or at least showed some signs of talent.

Young came into Conde Naste with a healthy British contempt for the celebrity scene he was supposed to cover. He fondly imagined that’s why they gave him the job. But no. You don’t land stars for the cover of your magazine if you don’t suck up a little, and the folks at Vanity Fair weren’t about to bite the hand that feeds them.

The movie gamely attempts to satirise this sad state of affairs, principally through the editor played by a smarmy Danny Huston, hobknobbing with the pretty young things for all he’s worth. Gillian Anderson is the formidable publicist who really pulls the strings at the magazine. And Megan Fox is the young starlet who dangles herself before our hero.

All of which is fair enough, and accurate up to a point. (If you think Notting Hill is a fair portrait of North London, you won’t have any trouble with this film’s depiction of the New York media.) I didn’t believe the scene when Anderson – for no apparent reason – offers an interview with her hottest clients to “Sidney”. Mark that one down to storytelling shortcuts. And I would be surprised if Vanity Fair actually gave publicists copy approval on its articles – essentially, the chance to take out anything they don’t like – but speaking as someone who was once banned from interviewing clients of one big PR agency after writing a humorous piece about Sandra Bullock, I guess it’s possible.

Kirsten Dunst is sweet in an under-developed role as Sidney’s colleague, initially repelled by his cocky and uncouth style, not to mention his taste in movies (she likes La Dolce Vita, he’s a Con Air man), but gradually warming to him. Why? Because he’s real, I think. Better a sincere idiot than a phony charmer, right? I’d put that down to movie make believe too, except that in Toby Young’s case, he really did marry the girl, write the book, and here’s your happily ever after…

Tom Charity
tom.charity@lovefilm.com

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