Susan Granger’s review of “What’s Your Number?” (20th Century-Fox)
Ever since the success of “Bridesmaids,” there’s been a rash of raunchy female comedies that are filled with scatological language. Now gals are comparing how many men they’ve slept with to determine their marriageability quotient – or something like that.
In Boston, on the eve of her younger sister Daisy’s (Ari Graynor) lavish wedding, Ally Darling (Anna Faris) reads a scientific study in a women’s magazine that alleges that a woman who has slept with 20 or more men must have serious self-esteem issues and, as a result, has little chance of ever getting married. Having already slept with 19, she vows to re-visit all her past boy-friends to see if, perhaps, she could rekindle a flame with one of them before #20 dooms her to eternal spinsterhood.
“I’m not gonna sleep with one more guy until I’m sure he’s the one,” she declares.
To help her track down the guys, unlucky-in-love Ally enlists the aid of her promiscuous across-the-hall neighbor, Colin (Chris Evans), a struggling musician who’s taken refuge in her apartment to escape his own romantic entanglements.
Ally’s exes include British actor Martin Freeman, Anthony Mackie, Joel McHale, Thomas Lennon, Andy Samberg, Zachary Quinto, and an overweight slob she dubbed Disgusting Donald, played by Faris’s real-life husband Chris Pratt….culminating in Colin’s observation, “What kind of guy cares about how many people you slept with, anyway?”
Derivatively written by TV sitcom veterans Gabrielle Allan and Jennifer Crittenden, based on Karyn Bosnak’s novel, it’s drenched with gender clichés and blandly directed by Mark Mylod, making it a pitifully lame and utterly predictable farce. Indeed, its only redeeming grace is ditzy Anna Faris, the brilliantly talented comedienne from “Scary Movie,” “Smiley Face” and “The House Bunny,” along with Blythe Danner and Ed Begley, Jr. as Ally’s divorced parents.
FYI: while publicizing this rom-com, Faris revealed that she’d bedded a total of five guys before marrying Chris Pratt (“Moneyball,” “Captain America”) in 2009.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “What’s Your Number?” is a smutty 3, adding up to very little.
