How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
Metascore
35 out of 100

Generally unfavorable reviews - based on 25 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 25
  2. Mixed: 11 out of 25
  3. Negative: 10 out of 25
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  1. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    38
    An embarassingly unfunny, stumblebum adaptation of Toby Young's memoir.
  2. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    38
    Nothing in How to Lose Friends feels fresh or on target.
  3. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Josh Rosenblatt
    30
    Where Young's book was a slap in the face, this movie is a kick on the backside, all hokey humor and quaint lovability.
  4. Variety
    Reviewed by: Todd McCarthy
    30
    Cleverly titled but noxious British comedy.
  5. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Michael O'Sullivan
    30
    The movie based on Young's 2002 memoir is a good bit blunter. One early laugh comes at the expense of a pig urinating on a woman's feet at the BAFTA awards, the British equivalent of the Oscars. And it doesn't get much better, or much smarter, than that.
  6. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    25
    Someone describes his writing as "snarky, bitter, witless." The last part pretty well sums up this movie.
  7. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Nathan Rabin
    25
    People's title proves prophetic, only this time the people being alienated are the suckers in the paying audience.
  8. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Joe Neumaier
    20
    Problem is, this movie is all surface - to quote one character, it has hidden shallows.
  9. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Robert Wilonsky
    10
    Weide's big-screen version is sitcom-drab.
  10. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    0
    The crushingly unfunny and slopped-together How to Lose Friends & Alienate People has neither the ambition nor the intelligence to do justice to its source material.

User Reviews

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User Score
6.4 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 35 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 14
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 14
  3. Negative: 4 out of 14
  1. DannyG.
    7
    Certainly not a great movie but it is perfectly amiable, with a few sharp digs at the excesses of the New York bourgeoisie (which might explain the overwhelmingly bad reviews in the USA). The cast is excellent. I wish the script had been tighter, the direction less perfunctory but it doesn't deserve the critical panning it has received. I guess it is true. North Americans don't get irony.… Full Review »
  2. TheQuietGamer
    4
    A disappointing movie. I never really found a reason to care about what was going on in this movie, and I'm not sure if it's just the writing or a poor performance from Simon Pegg but the main character just disgusted me. I didn't care about any of the characters and laughs were sparse. How to Lose Friends & Alienate People manages to be poor enough to alienate and lose its audience.… Full Review »
  3. Halfwelshman
    5
    For the most part, How to Lose Friends & Alienate People is a decent enough British comedy film. Based on journalist Toby Young's memoirs, we follow Sideny Young (Simon Pegg) attempting to make it as a big-name journalist for the massively popular Sharps magazine based in New York. The casting is pretty inconsistent - Pegg makes for a thoroughly unlikeable protagonist (perhaps due to the man Sidney is not-so-loosely based on), but you do warm to him eventually, once you've had time to take some pleasure in some of Sidney's failures. Kirsten Dunst makes for a bit of a comedy revelation as Alison Olsen, Sidney's fellow Sharps journalist and love interest, and Gillian Anderson and Miriam Margolyes seem to be relishing their roles as powerful, media-savvy publicist Eleanor Johnson and Mrs Kowalski, Sidney's landlady respectively. Meagan Fox, surprisingly enough, also impresses, at least if, like me, you take her performance as Sophie Maes, a ditsy actress looking to be taken seriously as an aware jab at her own media image. Elsewhere the casting is rather less impressive. Jeff Bridges, playing Sharps editor Clayton Harding, does a rather fine impression of Jeff Bridges. Also, I am yet to see a film where Danny Huston, here playing Sidney's nemesis and immediate superior Lawrence Maddox, puts any effort into a role, but he's got the "skill" of talking a bit too loudly, then a bit too quietly mastered. The film has a few decent jokes, and makes a passing attempt to comment on the plasticity of celebrity and the vindictiveness of journalism, but it's too long, and somehow still manages a rushed, sloppy ending, and unfortunately for a romantic comedy, the romantic element doesn't really work. A few of the jokes miss their mark as well, and the film does resort to Farrelly-grade crudeness now and again. How to Lose Friends & Alienate People does work as a comedy, and actually tries to say something relevant about the modern world, but a few casting, writing and pacing missteps do threaten to ruin your enjoyment of the film. It's worth watching if you've got an evening to kill, and you want a bit of undemanding fun, but it's probably not worth going out of your way to see.… Full Review »
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