How To Lose Friends and Alienate People, based on the memoir by Toby Young, follows a socially awkward yet entertaining Brit, Sidney Young (Simon Pegg), as he adjusts from life as a small-time journalist in London to his career at a large corporate magazine in New York City. When editor of Sharps magazine Clayton Harding (Jeff Bridges) witnesses one of Sidney's debacles at a black-tie event, he takes interest and immediately invites him to work for his big time celebrity gossip magazine in New York.
Always quite adept at making first impressions, Sidney tarnishes his reputation wherever he goes. Sidney makes just about as many mistakes as he possibly can during his time at Sharps, proving himself to be a bumbling idiot with a sophisticated accent.
His co-worker, Alison Olsen (Kirstin Dunst), is disgusted by his attempts to pursue her and is often in charge of repairing the trail of damage that he leaves wherever he goes.
Their exchanges are entertaining, as his wacky personality clashes with her seemingly straight-edged, cynical nature.
After several failed attempts at wooing Alison and a great deal of blundering on the job, Sidney immerses himself in his career and rises to the top, where he falls head over heels for the high life and the smoldering celebrity Sophie Maes (Megan Fox).
Eventually, Simon realizes that the glamorized world of Hollywood is everything that he despises and that fame and fortune is not all that it appears to be. Likewise, Alison exposes the true nature of her humble background to Sidney and that she is, in fact, not content with her fast-paced New York City life. Suddenly, their lives come to a crashing halt, which allows them to re-evaluate everything. In yet another humorous debacle that seals his fate, Sidney finally makes his true beliefs known to all of Hollywood. Only after both Sidney and Alison hit rock-bottom do they realize their misguided pursuits and begin to realize the importance of remaining genuine amidst a corrupt society with an ignored set of values.
Although Sidney fails miserably at fitting into American high society, it is through his attempts to reach this point that we are exposed to the false glamour that is Hollywood. The viewer begins to sympathize with Sidney rather than those who run the show.
Even though this movie is filled with bawdy humor, it provides its viewers with subtle reminders: stay true to one's ambitions, and striving for things in life with the wrong intentions will never yield satisfactory results.
Other movies, such as The Devil Wears Prada touch upon some of the same issues, in a less humorous fashion, if you ask me. All in all, this type of film reminds us, through its use of humor, to keep ourselves grounded while in pursuit of our goals, which is never a bad thing for a college student to hear.
This film is definitely worth a trip to the theater, in my opinion. Simon Pegg ( also starring in Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and the series Band of Brothers) is an excellent actor with an impressive resume and never fails to provide his audience with a good laugh.
The film, although predictable and perhaps lacking various qualities of a high-quality film, is at the very least entertaining. This British actor plays the quintessential fish-out-of-water character who effortlessly succeeds at exposing America's unhealthy obsession with celebrity culture. Pegg's relentless idiotic antics are reminiscent of Jim Carrey's Lloyd persona in Dumb & Dumber, and at times the viewer wants to shake some sense into him while simultaneously laughing at his inability to function in cultured society.
Pegg's character had me laughing at his misfortunes for the entirety of the film. The end I considered somewhat cheesy and predictable, but I left the theater with a smile on my face.
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