Dir. Dominic Burns, UK, 2011, 109 mins
Cast: Simon Phillips, Craig Conway, Gemma Atkinson, Stephanie Leonidas, Colin Salmon, Richard E. Grant, Martin Kemp
Review by Jean Lynch
You’ve seen the match.com advert, right? Well, suppose the ‘girl on the platform’ didn’t take too kindly to being serenaded by some drippy hippy with a guitar, that she’d had a bad day and really just wanted to be left alone to get on with reading her book. And suppose, on his being a bit slow on the uptake, she then told him to “f**k off!” What would he do? Slink off, tail between his legs and wait for the next train? Or would he jump under it? Perpetual loser-in-love Ian (Richard E. Grant) opts for the latter, but not before recording a quick, time-delayed video mobile message to his equally hapless friend, James (Phillips), a bespectacled, bicycling Brian-from-Phoenix-Nights lookalike who’s a bit of a wiz at Warrior Quest, the theme to which also happens to be his ringtone – you get the picture? From beyond the grave – at his own funeral, in fact – Ian implores James to not be like him, a dateless wonder, and to “get out there”. As good ol’ luck would have it, who just happens to be there too but Hannah (Atkinson), the girl he’s fancied “like… forever”. Just a shame she doesn’t remember him, really, even though they did spend seven years at the same school together.
And so James, aided by his friends Patch (Leonidas) and Tom (Chris Gezo, also the film’s writer co-writer), sets about fulfilling Ian’s dying wish, but first James is going to have to learn a trick or two in the fine art of seduction. Enter Ampersand (Conway), a professional pick-up artist, trained by the master himself, Zeus (Kemp), a genius at attracting women but not the punters for his motivational workshops. His website needs fixing. “I could do that for you!” Says James.
Under Ampersand’s bawdy but benevolent tutelage, James is schooled in the ways of women, what to say, what not to say (“time of the month, is it?” is not a good opening line to the lady in the checkout queue with the box of tampax in her basket) and what to wear (“This (a padded bodywarmer) is nice,” “Who’d you think you are? Marty McFly?”), until fate shows its hand and lets him have a knock at trying out his skills on the lovely Hannah once more. But, as they say, just because you could doesn’t mean you should.
How to Stop Being a Loser is a great British comedy. Likened to the Will Smith Vehicle Hitch, but less glossy and more a Simon Pegg style humour, it’s corny and cheeky, with a lot of love and a lot of laughs. James is adorable. Phillips has great comedic timing and turns in a geeky loser who is so lovable you have to laugh – and cry – with him, not at him. And his character arc is nicely executed too, the transition from loser to lover not too extreme as to be unbelievable. His relationship with the larger-than-life Ampersand is what drives the film. Conway pulls out all the melodramatic stops and enjoys hamming it up as James’ mentor. If he were a woman, he’d be the tart with a heart of gold. It’s a nice portrayal of what could have come across as an intensely dislikeable and arrogant character but Conway keeps us on his side, his actions often belying his brash persona. His opening scene, on stage at his workshop, in a village hall, to an audience of two (and one of them’s got the wrong room), is a direct reference to Tom Cruise’s ‘respect the cock’ routine from Magnolia, which he gleefully overplays and is poking as much fun at these gurus as we are.
There are lots of famous faces in cameos too, from Eastenders’ Jill Halfpenny and Billy Murray to Emmerdale’s Adele Silva to Two Pints of Lager’s Sheridan Smith. Martin Kemp is sleazily superb & superior as Zeus, the man who literally wrote the book on picking up women, while Colin Salmon as an increasingly less than objective shrink (to whom James is telling his whole sorry story throughout the film) is a revelation. A really funny one.
The film’s biggest weakness is the denouement. James has to make a life-changing decision and quite frankly the reasons for doing what he does really aren’t that big a deal, a few words over dinner at most maybe. But then that’s me, who can say? That minor quibble aside, HTSBAL is a terrific little film. I viewed it with a certain amount of trepidation ahead of its DVD release, as some reviews had been less than kind, why I don’t know. It’s very funny with some genuinely great performances and characters you’ll really like and root for, and squirm for on their behalf too. Plus it’s lo-budget and British into the bargain. All good reasons to get behind it in my book.
How to Stop Being a Loser won me over, and I’m sure it will you, given half a chance.
Available to buy on on UK DVD from 6th February 2012, exclusively at ASDA. At general stores across the UK from 20th February, 2012.
DVD Bonus Features include:
- A commentary with a genuine pick-up artist and actor Craig Conway
- A west-end premiere featurette
- A selection of trailers
- posted on 24/05/2012 00:25:44
