How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
User Score
6.4 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 35 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 26 out of 35
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 35
  3. Negative: 5 out of 35

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  1. TheQuietGamer
    Apr 23, 2013
    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.
  2. Halfwelshman
    Mar 26, 2012
    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.… Collapse
  3. MichaelD
    Mar 19, 2012
    5
    I expected too much from this movie. There was a few one-off gags but overall I was disappointed.
  4. Hyperbole
    Jan 17, 2012
    0
    Kills the thought process I had that Jeff Bridges can't be in a bad film. Hyper real, but in a bad bad way. It's not funny at all. I understand what its trying to do, but it just does it so awfully.
  5. Alex6
    May 8, 2011
    7
    Granted it's predictable, mainstream, unoriginal and simple, horribly contrived at times with the rom-com element, cringefully acted with a dodgy script and I can fully appreciate why it received such terrible reviews. But even it's harshest critics will at least find themselves **** at it's querky and nostalgic references. Pegg has undoubtedly stuck to his strong suit in terms of his easily identifiable loser-character, but that's exactly what you go and see the film for. On the other hand, Megan Fox and Kirsten Dunst are the ultimate down-side to any film.… Expand
  6. johndoe
    Dec 29, 2008
    10
    Personally I loved this film and and some of these critics that rated this movie are not going to give it above 90 unless it's the best movie that ever happened to mankind and even then the new york times and time magazine would only give it a 50. I loved this movie and I would reccomend everyone to buy it or at least rent it.
  7. PeterA
    Nov 7, 2008
    1
    The first movie I've actually walked out of (about 20 minutes from the end) in about 15 years. There comes a point where you have to ask yourself "don't I have anything better to do than watch a movie?" What's so wrong with it? I think Wilonsky from the Village Voice captures this movies problems well. Don't waste your time or money on this garbage.
  8. JamesP.
    Nov 4, 2008
    7
    You probably have to be British to appreciate this film. What What Brit hasn't got wasted at a party, stood on the band's stage and shouted ENG-ER-LUND ENG-ER-LUND until falling over comatose? I know I have. Maybe New Yorkers don't do that sort of thing. Looks like they probably should.
  9. RobertJ.
    Nov 1, 2008
    9
    I loved this film! I was expecting bad things after reading teh Metacritic ratings but we had already booked our Goldclass tickets so had to go, Went in expecting to be able to go to sleep but no what an enjoyable film. It was funny, yes some slapstick but overall Simon Pegg was very convincing. I haven't read the book but will get it now. I wonder if all the negative reviews were from US journalists who it hit a raw nerve with. It's basically about insincerity and does not put US journalists in a particularly good light. A telling scene at a party when Pegg's charachter says that in the UK they keep people out of these parties whereas in the US the celebs gush all over the journalists almost begging them to write a story on them. In the end he saw the light and got out. I would say go and see it and don't let these creepy journalists watching a film which exposes them for the hypocrites we despise and no them to be.… Expand
  10. DannyG.
    Oct 26, 2008
    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.… Expand
  11. AlexJ.
    Oct 10, 2008
    2
    The amusement factor of the film seemed to be in inverse proportion to the success of Pegg's character. Are we supposed to actually be rooting for this moron? The love story with Dunst was horribly contrived as well.
  12. ChadS.
    Oct 8, 2008
    6
    Karen Valby profiles author Nicholas Sparks in the latest issue of "Entertainment Weekly". Since her subject comes across as something of a preening ass, the reader can surmise that "True Believer" is definitely not a puff piece. If Sparks' publicist had copy approval, she'd blue pencil the part about the author's asinine notion that only he and Toni Morrison are the only contemporary writers to have their books come out in Cliff Notes. In "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People", Sidney Young(Simon Pegg) works for an "EW"-type magazine that lost its way, just like how legendary music journalist Lester Bangs predicted it would in Cameron Crowe's "Almost Famous", when he warns his young protege about where music(or rather, entertainment) journalism is heading. The vertically-challenged Brit loses his objectivity by making friends with the movie stars. He pursues, and eventually wins the right to be the accessory of a sexy, but vapid starlet named Sophie Maes(Megan Fox). He also writes an article that showers undue praise over a filmmaker he despises(a Guy Ritchie-type, somebody influenced by Quentin Tarantino). With some differences, this film still maintains the basic framework of Billy Wilder's "The Apartment", in which both narratives feature protagonists who fall for a co-worker already attached romantically to their married bosses. In the Wilder film, C.C. Baxter(Jack Lemmon) gets a promotion by playing ball with Mr. Sheldrake(Fred MacMurray), even though the company head breaks the elevator girl's heart(Fran Kubelik, played by Shirley MacLaine). Similarly, Sidney is the beneficiary of a better job, Alison's job(Kirsten Dunst), in fact, after she and her married lover(Alison's boss(Danny Huston), but not the big boss) are fired by Clayton Harding(Jeff Bridges). "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People", albeit knowledgable about celebrity culture, will probably lose and alienate professional women by its retrogressive suggestion that Alison would readily rush into the arms of Simon, who took over her job as Arts Editor without ever giving it a second thought. "La Dolce Vita"(Alison's favorite film), apparently, transformed this professional woman into an elevator girl(both "The Apartment" and the Federico Fellini film came out in 1960), the kind of girl who would read "The Notebook"(yes, it's coming out in Cliff Notes).… Expand
  13. JenniferS.
    Oct 6, 2008
    3
    Terrible! I only voted this movie a 3 because Megan Fox and Kirsten Dunts aren't too bad to look at...otherwise the movie was awful!!!!!!
  14. PeterS.
    Oct 5, 2008
    6
    The film isn't brilliant but the critics have been harsh on the film. There are a few problems (I don't know whether I'm meant to like/dislike Simon Pegg and I got bored in the first half) but I left the film feeling satisfied.

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
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
  1. Empire
    Reviewed by: Helen O'Hara
    60
    Not as smart or as satirical as you might hope, but an enjoyable and often funny look at a mad, mad, mad, mad world.
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  2. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Robert Wilonsky
    10
    Weide's big-screen version is sitcom-drab.
    Read full review
  3. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    58
    Best in show is the divine Gillian Anderson as a powerful celebrity publicist, editing the image of her clients in much the same way this adaptation tames Young's much pricklier book.
    Read full review
See all critic reviews »