Inga’s Vitriolic Movie Review Corner

This week: What’s Your Number? (2011) Starring: Anna Faris, Chris Evans

First, I’d like to put my hand up to say that I adore Anna Faris, and submit she’s the most underrated comic actress of the last fifteen years. I know humour is terribly subjective, but I’ve always felt women are inherently unfunny creatures from a visual standpoint*. Men can be goofy, childish and outright crude and it’s hilarious. To me, women doing similar things seem vaguely uncomfortable and cringeworthy – feel free to prove me wrong of course. Anna, however, just nails it. Admittedly, she plays essentially the same character in every film, but she can make me laugh harder in a single scene than Ben Stiller and Will Ferrell have in their entire career.

So while that assertion may be a tad antifeminist, it’s nowhere near as offensive as the misogynistic, obnoxious mound of horse shit that is What’s Your Number?

In a nutshell, Anna plays a thirty-something single gal who reads an article claiming “96% of women with 20 or more lovers cannot find a husband”. Being a raging whore with nineteen previous partners, our lead female immediately flies into a panic and vows not to sleep with one more man until she’s found The One.

Allow me to illustrate my reaction with a meme:

This movie put my blood pressure through the roof. I’m about to get ranty people, so buckle up.

a)      The protagonist is a dippy, loveable female with the singular goal of locking down a husband. For a start, the premise has been done to death. Secondly, IT’S FUCKING STUPID AND HOLLYWOOD NEEDS TO STOP PERPETUATING THIS SHIT BEFORE I CUT A BITCH. I’m the only single girl in my workplace, and I’m constantly being asked whether ‘someone’s come along yet’. Do you think anyone makes the same enquiry of the twenty or so single men wandering around? No. Do you know why? BECAUSE THEY KEEP MAKING STUPIDASS BULLSHIT MOVIES LIKE THIS THAT MAKE WOMEN LOOK LIKE FEEBLE-MINDED, OBSESSIVE TWITS. You know what? Some of us don’t want husbands. Some of us want to be property magnates, some of us want to earn medical degrees, some of us want to take our clothes off for a living and buy a house with cash, some of us want to adopt all the homeless cats in the world and some of us want to drink a lot and have sex with whomever we please. Which leads me to my next point.

b)      TWENTY? Twenty sexual partners is supposed to be considered excessive for a single lady in her mid-thirties? Even supposing she lost her virginity at 19 (the average age in Australia is 17.8, if you’re wondering), that’s only one and a quarter men a year. Hold onto your dicks boys, we’ve got a prostitute up in here!

c)       The eventual love interest in this woeful tale is the bloke across the hall (Chris Evans of Captain America fame) who sleeps with a different woman every night. This isn’t horrifying in itself, it’s more the fact that he sneaks out every morning before the girls wake up, leaving them to pick up their panties and limp shamefully home. And you can bet no one’s pointing out he’ll never find a wife if he carries on like that. Predictably, he eventually confesses to our leading lady that he sleeps around because he’s scared of getting close to anyone for fear of being hurt. Unconvincing. Men who look like Chris Evans are having sex with lots of women because THEY CAN. And guess what? Women who are having sex with lots of men are doing it because THEY CAN TOO.

Captain Yes, Please

Of course these two end up together at the end of the movie, with not a hint of irony that the promiscuous boy is painted as the perfect boyfriend, while poor Anna with her twenty lovers is the slut who got lucky.

So what we’ve learnt from this film is the following:

1. Gaining a husband is the foremost goal in every woman’s life. She should limit her number of sexual partners for fear of growing old alone, which is the worst thing that can happen EVER. Put your vagina away, you disgusting whore.
2. Promiscuous men are merely sad, lost waifs just waiting for someone to open their heart. It doesn’t matter if he’s a jerk that objectifies womankind – you’ll feel very lucky to have him at the end of the movie, especially if you’re a bow-legged slut.
3. I need to stop watching movies like this before I burst something.

*Women are funnier writers. Especially that bird that wrote Fifty Shades of Grey.