October 2, 2011
Review - " What's Your Number " - (in theaters) By Roland Hansen
For comments or to submit a movie review for possible inclusion on Delta Films site
please send an email to Critics@deltafilms.net















What's Your Number
Directed by: Mark Mylod
Starring: Anna Faris, Chris Evans, Ari Graynor, Blythe Danner, Ed
Bagley Jr, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Heather Burns, Eliza Coupe
“What's Your Number” first looked to be a movie about how silly
magazines like Cosmo craze typically well adjusted women into
believing (or trying) ridiculous things in the name of romance and
passion. The flip side of this is that these sorts of magazines can also
make women believe they are weird, or fat, or slutty. It's the latter in
“What's Your Number” a romantic comedy for I'm-not-sure who that
manages to delight anyhow.
Things pick up with Ally (Anna Faris) dumping her boyfriend, getting
fired, dealing with her overbearing mother, and realizing she's had the
most sexual partners (20) among her group of friends. This is a
problem because Ally has read a study that claims that a woman who
has had over 20 sexual partners is statistically far less likely to get
married than those with less.
So, Ally has the great idea of tracking down all her ex-boyfriends,
thinking that maybe she could re-connect with one of her exes, thus
keeping her number under 20 and the goal of a happy marriage a bit
more attainable.
Ally manages to track down these ex-boyfriends by way of her
womanizing neighbor, Colin (Chris Evans), whose dad is a cop and
has thus inherited a knack for searching people out. Colin is the kind
of stud where every part of his body seems to be sprouting perfectly
styled facial hair.

They grow together as Ally looks up the people from her past, and with each subsequent name off the list, Colin becomes
more of a possibility, as he's there to support and care for her in her moments of weakness.The movie is made by their
chemistry, and Evans is believable as the kind of guy who would openly discuss sleeping with Ally despite her insistence they
would not, and Anna Faris comes across as the kind of goofy / sexy that would happily and proudly enjoy the naughty
pleasures in life.
However, the movie is entirely unmotivated.
Beyond the simple plot and message, any
sort of directing, or stylisic choices are there
simply as garnish. Ally is in marketing, but we
don't know what she does or what she does
for money once she's fired. This movie is set
in Boston and no one has a Boston accent.
This is a professionally made movie, and they
couldn't get one guy to do a fuhkin' Bahstan
accent? It's weird because the director ends
the entire movie on a shot of the boston
skyline. That's not to say it features bad
performances or a lack of plot or good writing,
it's just everything seems a bit off.
I can't fathom how this movie came together
or who it is for. It features a gratuitous amount
of implied nudity from both Anna Faris and
Chris Evans, and I have visions of Anna Farris's agent reading the script and rolling his or her eyes every time Anna was
featured in some sort of frilly underwear. I don't know if it's a problem or not when I found myself wanting to yell at the screen
“Put some pants on that girl!” toward the middle of the film. But I imagine since the majority of movie goers will be couples,
the collective body image of the theater will likely fall about 17 points after an hour and a half of Chris Evan's happy trail.
The movie isn't bad, it's actually very funny and sweet and hits all the notes and emotions you'd except from a typical
romantic comedy, but with a non-traditional premise and non-traditional message, it's almost heart breaking to see the
typical hollywood tropes arrive to gunk up what could have been much much more.
But I guess this is one of those “sexy” movies. it's raunchy in a verbal way, and everyone just seems to be in love with the
word that I used to think was Virginia until 5th grade. Really. This happened in “Horrible Bosses”, too. Where, in order to give
the boring talking scenes some spice in the
beginning of the movie, characters will toss
around just really vulgar language for no
particular reason. If counting, I ran out of
fingers and toes before I ran out of Virginias.
And don't even get me started on
Pensacolas.
“What's Your Number” is friendly and warm
and uplifting and a rally call for those of us
with larger than life libedos. The people
we've been with and the people we will be,
and the fact remains it matters and always
will because the eyes of judgement almost
always fall to the waist line and the always
dangerous territory of romantic history. Is 19
a high number? I guess. Is $10 too much to
pay for this movie, I don't think so. You'll get
just about your money's worth.