How to Be Single opens with a voiceover about there being a right and wrong way to be single, which made me furrow my brow and go, “hrmmm.” Moments later, we meet our protagonist, Alice (Dakota Johnson), gazing out of a cab heading into New York City as Taylor Swift’s “Welcome to New York” plays. “HRRMMMM,” I said again, a little louder this time. I wasn’t feeling great about what I’d hoped to be a decent movie about being a single gal.
But then—it was a decent movie! I’m not sure what happened, but I stopped hating the movie within about 10 minutes, and then I liked it kind of a lot. The movie follows Alice after her breakup from her college boyfriend, learning to be on her own by doing lots of things that, hey, I liked doing after I broke up with my college boyfriend! Despite my best efforts, I related hard. Alice is even from Portland! That’s where I live!
