How to Be Single(2016)

Warner Bros.

R
1h 50m

Release Date: Feb 12, 2016 | Wide

A group of young adults navigate love and relationships in New York City.

Official Website

Releases

Original Release | Feb 12, 2016

View Advanced Data Watch Trailer Watch on

Box Office Results

Results

Opening Weekend US & Canada:
$17,878,911
Total US & Canada:
$46,843,513
Total International
$65,700,000
Total Worldwide:
$112,543,513

Current Showtimes

Your Location or

(U.S. Only)

Director & Top Cast

Christian Ditter
Director

Marc Silverstein

Technical Specifications

Sound Mix: Dolby Digital

Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1

Other Details

Country of Origin: United States

Language: English

Summaries

Plot Summary

Alice (Dakota Johnson) temporarily dumps her college boyfriend Josh (Nicholas Braun) and moves to New York City to be a paralegal. She moves in with her sister, Meg (Leslie Mann) an OB/GYN who refuses to have a baby or any form of relationship. Alice befriends wild co-worker Robin (Rebel Wilson), who enjoys partying and one-night stands, and local bartender Tom (Anders Holm), who willfully embraces the bachelor lifestyle and hooks up with various women including Alice. Tom meets Lucy (Alison Brie) at his bar when she uses his Internet for free. She explains she is looking for "The One" using various dating sites. Alice confides to Tom that she has always been in relationships & doesn't know who she is. Tom Advises Alice on how to be single, by eliminating everything "relationship like" in her life.Alice meets with Josh to tell him she is finished with their break and ready to get back together. Josh explains that they can't because he is seeing someone else, which distresses Alice. Meanwhile, Meg has a change of heart and decides to have a child via sperm donor. She starts dating a younger man named Ken (Jake Lacy) shortly after learning her attempt at In Vitro fertilization was successful, however she hides the pregnancy from Ken. Meg has to ask Alice to move out of her apartment, due to the crazy antics of Robin, with whom Alice is spending a lot of time together. Alice finds an apartment for herself.Back at Tom's bar, Lucy has a string of bad dates. Tom witnesses this and realizes he has feelings for Lucy. As her sister kindles her own relationship, Alice continues to pine after Josh. In an attempt to put herself out there, she attends a Wesleyan alumni networking event, where she hits it off with a man named David (Damon Wayans Jr).Lucy, having been in a relationship for three weeks with a man named Paul, goes to Grand Central Station to send him off to the train. Paul reveals that he has been seeing other people, thinking she was doing the same, and breaks up with her. Lucy, extremely agitated, breaks down at her volunteer job reading stories to children. George (Jason Mantzoukas), who works at the bookstore, soothes her and the two begin a relationship.Alice and Robin attend Josh's winter holiday party, however Alice finds she cannot watch Josh with his new girlfriend. Walking alone, she runs into David, who shows her a private view of the Rockefeller Christmas tree. Dazzled, Alice thanks him and they begin a relationship. Three months later, as she is singing with David's daughter, Phoebe, David becomes upset with Alice, reminding her sternly that she's not Phoebe's mother. The two break up.On St Patrick's Day, Alice bumps into Josh and his parents, and he appears pleasantly surprised to see her. Lucy comes to Tom's bar and shows him the swanky outfit she got for herself to share with George. Tom is visibly upset, and he invites Alice to get drunk. The two talk about their frustrations with their feelings for Josh and Lucy, and end up sleeping together in an attempt to distract themselves. Meanwhile, Ken discovers Meg is pregnant, but is eager to help raise her child. Meg, concerned that he isn't truly committed, ends the relationship.Later, at Alice's birthday party, Robin has invited Tom, David, and Josh without Alice's knowledge. Shaken by the presence of all three men, Alice argues with Robin. Tom goes to confess his feelings to Lucy, who announces she is engaged to George. Now sitting on the fire escape, Alice is joined by Josh. The two make out passionately but stop when Alice is horrified to learn that Josh is now engaged and was simply looking for closure. Invigorated by a desire to find herself, Alice leaves to go home. Her cab hits Robin, who has purposely jumped on the windshield to get a cab for Meg, who is in labor. Alice and Meg rush to the hospital, where Meg successfully delivers her baby. Ken appears and convinces her to re-enter the relationship, while Alice repairs her relationship with Robin.The film closes as Alice reflects on her time living alone and being single. Tom is seen repairing his tap water plumbing, which he had purposely cut in an attempt to prevent hungover women from hanging around his apartment. Meg and Ken are playing with the baby, and Robin carries on partying. Alice is seen hiking the Grand Canyon by herself so that she can witness the sunrise on New Year's Day, a dream she always had.

Storyline

There's a right way to be single, a wrong way to be single, and then...there's Alice. And Robin. Lucy. Meg. Tom. David. New York City is full of lonely hearts seeking the right match, be it a love connection, a hook-up, or something in the middle. And somewhere between the teasing texts and one-night stands, what these unmarrieds all have in common is the need to learn how to be single in a world filled with ever-evolving definitions of love. Sleeping around in the city that never sleeps was never so much fun. Josh was the perfect dorm mate and graduated to devoted fiance for Alice, but she insists on 'a break' to 'find herself' on search of a paralegal career in New York. By the time she's ready to crawl back, he committed to a smarter woman. Meanwhile she joined a loose band of lonely hearts in the Big Apple, drawn along with corpulent but shameless law firm colleague Robin, who jumps any male bones which allow her. handsome, suave bar man Tom on the other hand has his slick ways to let girls come to him as one night stands and be out of his hair the next day, yet he makes an exception. — KGF Vissers Four women with vastly different ideas about love and relationships navigate the single life of New York City. Taking a break from her long-term boyfriend Josh (Nicholas Braun), Alice (Dakota Johnson) sets out on a journey of self-discovery with her hard-drinking new friend Robin (Rebel Wilson). Meanwhile, Alice's career-driven older sister Meg (Leslie Mann) struggles with the idea of settling down, and uptight romantic Lucy (Alison Brie) searches for her perfect match.. In New York City, Alice, Meg, Robin and Lucy, loosely or not so loosely connected, are four women at different emotional stages of being single. Never having been alone, Alice, freshly out of college and in her first real job as a paralegal, decided that she needed a break in her four year relationship with her college sweetheart Josh, who is heartbroken from the news, with Alice saying that she will return to him when she finds what she needs in that solitude. She assures him that sowing oats or another man are not factors in her decision. Alice has no skills to be alone and thus, perhaps without even realizing it, may put out those vibes to men in wanting a relationship, whether it be with Josh or anyone else. Years after a painful break-up, Meg, Alice's older sister, has focused on her career as an obstetrician, although she herself has no desire to have any children of her own in not actually liking children. When she changes her mind and decides to have a baby through IVF and sperm from a bank in still not wanting a man in her life, she does not seem to have space for a significant other even if one stumbles into her realm, even one that loves everything about her and is not deterred by any of her craziness, pregnancy related or not. Robin, Alice's coworker, doesn't seem to have any personal boundaries or respect for anyone else's boundaries in being the ultimate party girl who overindulges in everything associated with partying, including the frequency of her sexual encounters with whoever can match her needs that evening. And Lucy, who lives above the bar they all frequent, the bar where she hangs out more often than her own apartment in it having more reliable WiFi, is methodical yet so far unsuccessful in her approach to finding her life mate, he who has to check off a number of boxes. The common bond between them all in terms of a man is Tom, the venue's bartender who is up front with all the women he hooks-up with that he has no interest in anything with them immediately after their sexual encounter, with the majority of those hook-ups only hearing what they want to hear which is not what he tells them. — Huggo