One of the advantages (or what I will refer to as an advantage for the moment, anyway) of streaming services is that they allow you to catch up on titles you missed in the theater.  Based on what I read on Wikipedia, instead of viewing Anyone but You (2023), I saw Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023).  Now that I have watched both of them, I am not sure which was the better decision.  At least the latter, for the most part, allows me to keep the custody of my eyes.  There is much in society that tries to turn us from God to pursue anything but Him.  This is a large part of why I started The Legionnaire, to enumerate and warn you about these potential cinematic pitfalls.  Anyone but You has a lot of them.

One could make the argument that Goldman Sach’s man Ben (Glenn Powell) is behaving in a charitable, Christian fashion at the beginning of Anyone but You.  Seeing the struggles of law student Bea (Sydney Sweeney) in getting the coffee shop staff to let her use the restroom, he pretends they are married, making her an eligible customer for the facilities.  This act of gallantry turns into a long walk around the city that ends back at his place.  They talk into the night, eventually falling asleep with nothing else happening.  For now, this Catholic reviewer found it refreshing that these two exercised some restraint.  In the morning, though, Bea behaves as if they had sex, sneaking off embarrassed before he awakens.  She immediately calls her sister, Halle (Hadley Robinson), excited about what happened but realizing the mistake made by leaving.  Before Bea returns, though, Ben’s friend Pete (GaTa) enters Ben’s apartment to find its owner upset.  As Bea is about to walk up, she overhears Ben talking about her as if that night meant nothing.  Six months pass and would you believe it but Pete’s sister, Claudia (Alexandra Shipp), who is also friends with Ben, has become engaged to Halle.  A lesbian wedding is in the works, which is not the Catholic ideal, but this is nothing new for films these days.  The pairing of Claudia and Halle brings Bea and Ben face-to-face for the first time since that night.  They are not happy to see each other.  Luckily, for the time being, they do not have to interact.  A year and a half later, however, the wedding is set to take place.  It is a destination celebration, taking place near Sydney, Australia.  Again, as luck would have it, Bea and Ben are on the same flight to the Land Down Under.  Their antics in transit are shown to establish that they still harbor ill feelings towards one another.  The situation does not improve once they get to the beach side mansion owned (rented?) by Claudia’s parents.  In the course of Bea and Ben’s sniping at one another, they manage to nearly burn down a floral arrangement with Claudia and Halle’s initials in flowers.  With this and other moments of verbal sparring, Claudia’s parents, along with Halle and Pete, decide they need to do something lest Bea and Ben ruin the wedding.  Instead of coming up with some kind of plan involving being adults and talking things over like Christians, the plan is to trick Bea and Ben into having sex.  So much for the last shreds of chastity in this film.  To top it all, the conspirators are obvious about what they are doing.  There are two developments that complicate the situation.  First is that Ben’s ex-girlfriend and native Australian, Margaret (Charlee Fraser), is present for the festivities.  Secondly, Bea’s parents have invited Jonathan (Darren Barnet) for the weekend.  Jonathan is Bea’s former fiancé, the two of them having a relationship that goes back to high school.  Hence, Bea and Ben reluctantly form a partnership that will make it appear that they are dating in order to get Bea’s parents off her back, and make Margaret jealous.  Despite Bea and Ben playing at being in love, their scheme seems to be working.  Bea’s mom and dad notice their daughter cozying up to Jonathan when she is not around Ben, not thinking she is serious about the newcomer.  As for Margaret, she perceives Ben as being more of a catch than she realized.  God created us for love, and it is a powerful force, not something with which you trifle.  I say that because, predictably, Bea and Ben begin to develop real feelings for one another.  This culminates in them doing all the things they did not do that first night following them being rescued from Sydney Harbor.  Early in the morning, Ben overhears Bea’s parents calling for her and decides he might embarrass her if he is caught in her room.  This is the excuse he gives later, at any rate.  She sees it as him running out on her, thus living up to everything she had thought about him for the last two years.  As such, she is back to hating him, and he makes it worse when he lets it slip that she has quit law school.  In the hullabaloo that proceeds from all these revelations, the wedding cake falls to the floor.  To make matters worse, Ben overhears Claudia and Halle musing about whether they should go through with their nuptials given all the chaos.  This has Bea and Ben vowing to behave for the ceremony.  At the rehearsal, Margaret dances with Ben, finally admitting that she wants to give their relationship another chance before kissing him.  Of course, Bea witnesses this and decides to take her leave with Claudia and Halle’s blessing.  When the situation with the smooch is sorted, and Ben finally admits his feelings, he makes a dramatic gesture to catch up with Bea.  She has gone to the Sydney Opera House, a place she had discussed with Ben, thus he knows where to find her.  They kiss and blah, blah, blah.

I ended my description of Anyone but You on that note because it is really just a romantic comedy, and a formulaic one despite the constant swearing, and slightly less constant nudity.  I did not mention in the last paragraph the casual drug use by young and old alike.  I know I have said this in previous reviews, but the Church’s teaching on being celibate before marriage is one that could potentially save civilization if we followed it.  Wait a second, you might say.  Did not Bea and Ben not have sex that first night they were together?  That is true, and I praised that behavior.  Yet, look at everything that happens after this as further proof of the soundness of my position.  Another part of Christian teaching is the importance of being honest, which you can also find in other reviews.  Perhaps you have seen this movie and will empathize with me here, or you just read my synopsis.  Either way, tell me that Bea and Ben simply being open about their experiences of the morning after they fell asleep talking would not have solved everything before it spiraled out of control?  Then again, you would not have had a *ahem* comedy had they been open.  But here I am once more not being charitable to a movie.  I suppose Bea and Ben deserve some credit for eventually giving their sides of what had taken place between them.  And look what happens, there is some healing of their shared wounds.  What they do while they talk about that night is that they are speaking the truth in love.  There is a lot of forms of this, and it is not always easy.  It is always right, though, because this is how Jesus did things.

Remarkably, Anyone but You made over $200 million at the box office.  It is also loosely based on William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing (1623).  If you watch Anyone but You, you might be as incredulous as I am about these last two little factoids.  At the same time, I hope none of this serves as an encouragement for you to watch the movie.