"How To Be Single" and loving it

Single in New York City?  Or London, L.A., Munich, Miami, or anywhere in between?  These days, in cities big and small, there’s a nightlife rife with girls’ nights out, singles’ bars, online dating and one-night stands arranged on apps—no romance required.  Today’s singles aren’t necessarily looking for Ms. or Mr. Right, or drowning their sorrows in their lonely bachelor/ette pads.  “How to Be Single” is an all-out comedy that shows how they’re all out there making the most of the single lifestyle, in the most outrageous ways imaginable.

The film’s director, Christian Ditter, states, “I wanted to make a really modern and fresh take on the comedy genre as it deals with partying, having fun, dating—a snapshot of what it really means to be single today.  A lot of movies that deal with men and women and dating are about finding the right one, but this is not that; it’s about embracing the most fun and free time of life while you’re also finding your place in the world, finding friends, finding out what you want to do with your life.”

Led by an ensemble cast that includes some of today’s hottest comedic actresses, including Dakota Johnson, Rebel Wilson, Alison Brie and Leslie Mann, and such rising comedy stars as Damon Wayans Jr., Anders Holm, Nicholas Braun, Jake Lacy, Jason Mantzoukas and Colin Jost, the film follows a host of singles at various stages of—and with varying opinions on—the single state.

Producer John Rickard notes, “It’s a universal experience, being young, right out of college and discovering a whole big world.  Or a few years later, hitting another one of those crossroads: what do I care about, what do I want to spend my life doing, does another person even figure into the picture?  We often think it’s a partner we have to find, but it’s really ourselves, and that can be scary.”

Happily, what’s scary in real life can make us laugh the hardest when it’s played out on film. Screenwriter/producer Dana Fox, a comedy veteran, offers, “Romantic comedies are always centered on the romance, but this is a comedy about the time in between the relationships, when you’re out there to have a good time in this crazy age of staring at your cell phone, having entire conversations in 140 characters or less and ‘swiping right’ to meet people.  There are so many advantages to a film with so many funny stories to tell.

“In any movie,” she continues, “you want audiences to feel like they’re along on the journey.  We have Dakota Johnson’s character, Alice, to provide the heart and soul of the story, and we have all these other great women and men to follow along and laugh with.”

Or laugh at.  Returning to her comedy roots, Johnson deftly handles Alice’s fumbling attempts to meet men upon finding herself newly single, especially when paired with Rebel Wilson’s extreme party girl, Robin, the perfect tour guide through the world of free drinks, hook-ups and text message protocol.  Alison Brie’s Lucy is a girl on an online dating mission, and Leslie Mann’s Meg has been on the career track and sort of forgotten to have a personal life.  Along with the guys they all meet along the way, they exemplify the wide range of what it’s like out there.

Ditter says, “I loved the script, I thought it was hilariously funny but also true to life, and it continued to evolve once we got on set with Dana and all these amazing comedic talents and their incredible improv skills.  So what we ended up with in the film are characters and stories I see a lot of my own experiences in, and friends’ experiences, too.  I think that anyone who’s been single—and that’s, well, everybody—will have a lot of fun and find a lot to laugh about when they relate it to their own life.”

New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures present, in association with Flower Films, a Wrigley Pictures Production, “How to Be Single.”  The film will be released theatrically worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company on Feb 11, 2016.

*Photo images courtesy of "Warner Bros. Pictures".

Cecilia Ahern's "Where Rainbows End" adapted to film's "Love Rosie"

Do we really only get one shot at true love? In “Love, Rosie” -Rosie and Alex have been best friends since they were 5, so they couldn’t possibly be right for one another...or could they? When it comes to love, life and making the right choices, these two are their own worst enemies.  One awkward turn at 18, one missed opportunity...and life sends them hurling in different directions. But somehow, across time, space and different continents, the tie that binds them cannot be undone – despite unwanted pregnancies, disastrous love affairs, marriage, infidelity and divorce. Will they find their way back to one another, or will it be too late?

Based on Cecelia Ahern’s bestselling novel, “Where Rainbows End,” “Love, Rosie” is a sassy, heart-warming, and utterly modern comedy-of-errors tale.   Director Christian Ditter adapts to film “Love, Rosie” where Lily Collins and Sam Claflin star as Rosie and Alex, childhood friends seemingly destined to be together, yet a couple which fate itself seems determined to keep apart. The film paints a rich and textured canvas of a complicated yet lifelong bond between Rosie and Alex, beginning in their childhood, spanning a trans-Atlantic separation, and enduring ups and downs of romantic liaisons with everyone but each other resulting in some bittersweet consequences.

“The story is about two people who really have a deep love for each other, but are constantly being pulled apart,” explains acclaimed Irish author, Cecelia Ahern, whose novel, "Where Rainbows End", was the source material for the film. “I wrote "Where Rainbows End" a couple of months after I had finished "P.S. I Love You,” she says of the follow-up to her first novel, written when she was only 21 years old.

“How do you adapt a book that’s all texts and emails,” says filmmaker Brooks of one of the project’s biggest challenges – the novel’s epistolary structure, composed around the emails, letters and text messages which Alex and Rosie exchange. “How do you make that into a movie?”  Around the same time, Hollywood producer Robert Kulzer of Constantin Film, found himself in a bookstore back in his native Germany – a country, notably, where the Irish author has one of her most loyal followings.

To adapt Ahern’s novel to the screen, Kulzer and Brooks turned to the British screenwriter Juliette Towhidi, whose credits include the 2003 award-winning hit comedy, Calendar Girls, with Helen Mirren and Julie Walters.  “She was like a detective,” says Kulzer of Towhidi’s process of adapting Ahern’s unconventional novel. “She was extracting plot and story points, creating her own world around these episodes that Cecilia had created in her novel.”

                Still, most crucial to the film’s overall success, would be the actor’s cast in the two leading roles – Rosie and Alex – best friends destined to be something more who’ve never managed to get their act together. Finding the perfect actors to portray them on screen would prove a simpler proposition, however, with the casting of Lily Collins and Sam Claflin – the filmmakers’ first and only choices for the roles.   Amongst the bright young faces in the Love, Rosie cast are: Jaime Winstone (daughter of British actor, Ray Winstone), here playing Rosie’s friend and confidante, Ruby; London fashion model Suki Waterhouse (Pusher), marking her second feature film role as Rosie’s rival, Bethany; rising star Tamsin Egerton (The Look of Love) as Sally, and Christian Cooke ("Magic City") as Greg, a local who takes more than a casual interest in Rosie.

“Jaime, Tamsin, Suki – all of them; I think we got lucky,” says producer, Simon Brooks of the ensemble. “The movie is fresh, kind of hip and cool and we got a cast that is young, fresh, hip and cool.”

                Love winds and finds ways - “Lovie, Rosie” opens January 8, 2015 in theatres from Pioneer Films.