What's Your Number? is a romantic comedy with a lot of the same sort of garbage Hollywood has been throwing out at us viewers for years. A girl unlucky in love and down in the dumps goes searching for the man of her dreams all the while missing the guy that's right under her nose. However, I do think the angle this movie takes is a funnier and bit fresher view.
In this film Anna Faris plays Ally Darling, a girl who just became jobless and single. While depressed already, things get worse when she reads a magazine article stating women who have slept with more than 20 guys have a hard time finding a husband. Since she is already at 20 she decides to sift through her exes and find "the one" thus in order preventing herself from surpassing the magic number of 20. Realizing she can't do it alone she enlists her playboy neighbor, Colin Shea (Chris Evans of Captain America), to help her find all of these men. I give the writer's credit here for not allowing this to be a plot hole and explaining Colin has a knack for digging up dirt thanks to his dad being a cop and taking him on stakeouts. It's not an ideal explanation, but it'll do and who really cares enough to look at that deeper? Anyways, in exchange for his services she allows him to hide out in her apartment whenever he's trying to lose a girl from the previous night without confrontation. All the while, Ally has to deal with her all too perfect sister who is getting married and her over bearing mother (Blythe Danner of Little Fockers) who wants the exact same thing for her.
The writing is on the wall the entire movie, though at least with me, I had come to expect that and thus tried to look past it and enjoy what I was watching at the time. Thankfully, I was able to do this at times as this movie did seem to have more to it than others with the same amount of cliche garbage. It was funnier than I had expected to be and Chris Evans was good in his strictly comedic role. Anna Faris, though in a very similar role to the others she has played, seemed more comfortable and natural in this one and thus made her comedic performance better as well. Perhaps the fact she was an executive producer allowed her more freedom. Either way this is much better than her movie "The House Bunny." That was just plain awful.
Overall, as usual with this type of flick, most girls will enjoy it much more than guys will. It helps there are more jokes generated towards women than men, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. I give this movie a thumb in the middle and a solid 2 out of 4 stars. It's nothing great, but its a fun different take on this cliched plot. Plus, it was just straight better than I expected. It's in theaters now so check it out there or wait for it on DVD. Enjoy!
Editor's Note: Ok ok, I know I'm a big liar. But once again, I saw a movie in theaters before writing my review for Last Night soooo, therefore it of course gets top priority. Barring this happening again look for Last Night starring Eva Mendes, Sam Worthington, and Kiera Knightley to be next up.
