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How to Lose Friends & Alienate People

R Released Oct 3, 2008 1h 49m Comedy List
37% Tomatometer 114 Reviews 42% Popcornmeter 25,000+ Ratings
Sidney Young is a down-on-his-luck journalist. Thanks to a stint involving a pig and a glitzy awards ceremony, Sidney turns his fortunes around, attracting the attention of Clayton Harding, editor of New York-based glossy magazine "Sharps", and landing the holy grail of journalism jobs. The Brit jets off to the Big Apple and moves from one blunder to the next.
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How to Lose Friends & Alienate People

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Critics Consensus

A decent performance from Pegg in a disappointing film. Neither sharp nor satirical, Weide's adaptation relies too heavily on slapstick, and misses the point of the source material in the process.

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Critics Reviews

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Deborah Ross The Spectator This is a fun movie but... it yaps around the ankles of its subject without ever moving in for a decent-sized, satisfying bite. Aug 23, 2018 Full Review David Stratton The Australian I'm told that several of these characters are easily recognisable to insiders, but outside that small coterie there's still a great deal to enjoy about Sidney's fish-out-of-water exploits. Rated: 3.5/5 Oct 31, 2008 Full Review Jim Schembri The Age (Australia) Weide bypasses the impulse to push the film at the usual breakneck comedy movie pace, allowing the conflicts to build slowly and with more thought than the film's premise might otherwise suggest. Rated: 3/5 Oct 24, 2008 Full Review Brian Eggert Deep Focus Review Comedies like this are rare for offering tangible characters we care about and comedy that affixes some significance to our periodic need for base humor. Rated: 3/4 Dec 6, 2023 Full Review Mike Massie Gone With The Twins Repetition is the ultimate enemy here. Rated: 4/10 Nov 28, 2020 Full Review Brian D. Johnson Maclean's Magazine You'd expect something better from Robert B. Weide. Dec 16, 2017 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Tongue L This movie is hilarious! I have watched this movie many times, and each time I still laugh. It is in my top 10 for Comedy. Such an underrated movie. Great cast and lots of laughs! Recommend watching it. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 06/03/24 Full Review Archer S A charming romantic comedy. Simon Pegg is excellent as a crusty, cynical Brit trying to make it as a celebrity journalist in New York City, as is the rest of the supporting cast in this satire of the world of celebrity journalism. A great date night movie. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/04/24 Full Review Vaughan C How to Lose Credibility & Alienate an Audience. Everyone in the cast seems to be in on the joke but nobody knows what it is. So they pretend. Avoid at all costs. Rated 1 out of 5 stars 11/19/23 Full Review kevin t This movie seemed like it might be interesting at first. A kind of "The Devil Wears Prada" type movie. One that could be really good, well acted, well written, and fascinating even for people that have no interest in the subject matter (ie celebrity or fashion). But, this movie falls flat & is disappointing. I haven't read the book, but I feel like, maybe the book is interesting and they just left all the interesting stuff out of the movie. There are blatant commercials in this movie (although most movies do this). Simon Pegg's character does nothing clever the whole movie, nor writes anything amazing or does anything innovative or clever or funny or rebellious. He decides very easily to ignore his morals, just cos some girl he likes is dating someone else. Except, this "romance" comes out of nowhere. They don't build up this so called romance. The couple have almost no chemistry together. They start disliking each other, then for some reason just keep talking anyway, she goes to his house drunk, suddenly they kinda like each other. He hates some other guy at work but there is no real indication why. They don't have some long going competitiveness or screwing each other over. He doesn't seem particularly bad so Simon Pegg would hate him that much. It feels like they just wrote what is going to happen in the movie on one sheet of paper and then just made up the rest while filming adding all the typical romance tropes but not doing them well. Its all disjointed, nothing goes well together, there is no soul, no feeling, no emotion.. you dont care about any of the characters. Simon gets together with Kirsten at the end for no apparent reason. There is no struggle to get her, no things going wrong, no obstacles in his way other than he cant book a flight straight away, he has to wait a few hours. OH NO!!! Its badly written & boring. I was expecting Simon Pegg to convince Jeff Bridges to go back to his old style of Journalism. But no. Unless I had some version of the movie that was edited down??? Maybe my version had a lot of good stuff cut out of it? Its just a dull & disappointing movie. Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 02/16/23 Full Review Ashley A I thought this was so funny! I am shocked at the low rating. Seriously! I am glad I watched it because I found it to be hilarious. It's in my top 10 favorite comedies. Good stuff:) Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/18/23 Full Review Brock B This movie was hilarious! It is one of my all-time favorites in the comedy genre. I am surprised it scored so low. I love love love this movie. I laughed so hard that my stomach hurt. If you need a good laugh, I recommend this movie. I am truly surprised that more people did not enjoy it. I will have to admit, that every time I watch it I catch something I missed before. So basically, it keeps getting better:) Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/15/23 Full Review Read all reviews
How to Lose Friends & Alienate People

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Cast & Crew

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Movie Info

Synopsis Sidney Young is a down-on-his-luck journalist. Thanks to a stint involving a pig and a glitzy awards ceremony, Sidney turns his fortunes around, attracting the attention of Clayton Harding, editor of New York-based glossy magazine "Sharps", and landing the holy grail of journalism jobs. The Brit jets off to the Big Apple and moves from one blunder to the next.
Director
Robert B. Weide
Producer
Stephen Woolley, Elizabeth Karlsen
Screenwriter
Peter Straughan
Distributor
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Production Co
Number 9 Films, Intandem Films, Film 4
Rating
R (Graphic Nudity|Brief Drug Material|Language)
Genre
Comedy
Original Language
British English
Release Date (Theaters)
Oct 3, 2008, Wide
Release Date (Streaming)
Jan 21, 2016
Box Office (Gross USA)
$2.8M
Runtime
1h 49m
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