Karli K, Annika W, Niah M

COMM 221
Kelly Rosetto
14 November, 2024
“How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” Media Critique

The main relationship of this film is a romantic one between Andie Anderson and

Benjamin Barry. Their relationship begins as a result of an ironic bet, where Andie is trying to

“lose” Ben in 10 days for the sake of a magazine article, while Ben attempts to make Andie fall

in love with him in that same time frame to win a professional advertisement campaign. Neither

character knows this is what is happening, and struggle to understand why the other wants to

continue the “relationship.” This is almost like a “ludus” relationship, meaning the relationship

is a game, because it is unserious. Because this relationship is not so called normal, their

communication is very different. The relational maintenance, the efforts made to keep a

relationship in a desired position, is very different for each person. Ben tries to satisfy the

relationship by putting up with all of Andie’s crazy antics. He also tries to repair the relationship;

everytime something goes wrong or abnormal, he tries to keep the relationship alive so that he

does not lose his bet. They keep lying to each other because they don’t know they are playing

with each other.

This movie is not necessarily about families and their patterns. Ben’s family, whom we

meet briefly, is a traditional family with high conversation and low conformity, meaning they

engage in open and frequent conversation emphasizing diverse attitudes, beliefs, and values.

The implications of these patterns are that they are a loving family with open communication,

but the pressure is not always there.

Ben and Andie face many challenges throughout their relationship. Many of these

challenges revolve around the bets placed on their relationship. Ben has to tolerate Andie’s

dealbreaker behaviors and pretend that he is completely smitten by Andie, even as she tries to

behave in a way that is unbearable. Just days into their relationship, Andie brings many of her
personal belongings to Ben’s house. She brings stuffed animals, plants, feminine products, and

multiple belongings that just wouldn’t be found in a man’s house. This takes Ben by surprise, but

he brushes it off and continues to be a good partner. Shortly after Andie brings all of these items

to his house, she buys them a dog and begins to photoshop photos of them getting married and

with their potential future children. Yet still, Ben chooses to stay with her.

Following this incident, Andie knowingly crashes Ben’s boy’s night. Andie acts overly

clingy, ruins their poker game, is excessively emotional, and pushes his boundaries using

humor, purposefully making the atmosphere uncomfortable. This leads to a sudden-death

statement breakup or the buildup of anger that leads to a sudden declaration of the end of a

relationship, between the two characters. However they quickly get back together. Andie really

tests Ben’s patience and his commitment to making her fall in love with him. Ben continually

practices accommodation and compromise. Accommodation is the practice of abandoning

one’s own goals to meet the needs of the other individual. Compromise is when goals are

changed to make them more compatible. In this movie, Ben is the one who practices

compromise while Andie makes that very difficult. Their mutual tolerance for each other, while

they both have conflicting goals, leads them to genuine feelings.

The greatest moment of conflict in the movie is at the end when both characters find out

about the bets they each have placed on their relationship. Discovering this knowledge leads to

hurt feelings from both characters. As they spent time together, Andie and Ben started

developing real feelings for each other, which complicates things for both of them. The

discovery of the games they are playing leads both of them to realize their feelings for each

other. In the final scene of the movie, Ben reads Andie’s article and realizes that she too

developed feelings for him. He tracks her down and confesses his feelings in a moment of

vulnerability, and they choose to stay together, but with no games this time. We see a level of

openness in this scene, or the ability to be vulnerable due to an amount of earned trust. This

movie displays many examples of conflict in relationships, and also displays many ways to
engage in conflict. The way the characters approach conflict is crucial to the storyline of the

movie.

Andie is trying to lose Ben, so she purposefully practices poor conflict resolving

techniques. Andie continually practiced sniping, which is communicating in a negative fashion

and then abandoning the encounter, when conflicts arose with Ben. She brings up emotionally

charged topics, such as the names of their hypothetical future children, and then back off,

leaving Ben bewildered and unable to respond or confront her further. Andie also creates a lot of

pseudo-conflict, or the perception that a conflict exists when in fact it doesn’t. Andie gives Ben

a “love fern” as a symbol of their relationship, then pretends to be offended and accusatory

when she sees it neglected. Ben interprets her actions as genuine neediness, which frustrates

him. He believes he has to tolerate her extreme behavior to win his bet, but the conflict is

actually based on a misinterpretation, as she’s only acting that way to fulfill her own goal of

making him want to break up.

Dialectical tensions can be seen toward the end of the film when Andie finds out she is a

bet Ben made with his coworkers, and Ben finds out he is a guy she was trying to write a story

on. Feelings are hurt and betrayed after Andie has a little bit too much to drink, and her

emotions get the best of her. Andie gets up on stage with Ben and they begin to sing the song,

“You’re so Vain” with a twist, like mentioned previously. Andie then starts insulting Ben during

the song using kitchen sinking, meaning insults have nothing to do with the original

disagreement, behaviors. She sings “your love making is lameeeee” in front of a whole

audience of Diamond jewelers and Ben’s colleagues, even his boss. This is kitchen sinking

because her insults have nothing to do with the song, nor the argument they were having on

stage. Another way dialect tensions can be seen is after Andie storms out of the building and

Ben chases after her wanting to talk about their situation. Both Ben and Andie use spotlighting

or using tone to spotlight meaning, in their conversation. Ben says, “Hell, now I bet you can use

it as a twist in your story”, then Andie responds with, “That’s a good idea, maybe we should bet
on it.” Ben emphasizes twist because Andie really twisted his arm throughout the relationship,

whereas Andie emphasizes bet, because she was the “bet” in the relationship.

In the film we can see that there is failure to maintain closeness, mostly because of the

bets both Ben and Andie make. Andie is doing everything in her power to “lose” this man in 10

days, whereas Ben is trying to secure any girl he can. Ben accommodates all of Andie’s

questionable behaviors and acts. A classic example of this is the “Coke” scene in the film. Andie

and Ben are at the Knicks game, and in the final few minutes Andie requests a Coke because

she is “really thirsty.” Ben accommodates Andie because he is giving up his own desires for

Andie. This derives closeness in the relationship because throughout the film Ben is

accommodating for Andie, getting nothing in return but poor attitudes and a raging personality.

This shows that the relationship was inequitable, which occurs when one is over/under

benefitted, and closeness was never going to be maintained unless Andies revealed from her

mask (veil/private life), and started acting like the Andie she is. Another challenge that resulted

in failing to maintain closeness was poker night at Ben’s house with him and his boys. One of

Ben's friends asked if Andie was “on something” because of her weird actions. Ben responds,

“God I hope so,” while circling his index finger towards his head (coo-coo/crazy signal). Andie

sees this nonverbal cue and immediately gets upset. She shouts, “You think I’m mental!” while

throwing the platter of vegetables across the room. This exemplifies that the relationship lacked

closeness because Andies displays reactivity, accusing Ben of thinking she was mental, and

throwing the vegetables across the room.

Ben and Andie experience many types of dialectical tensions throughout their

relationship. While their relationship is unconventional, it gives great examples of how to, and

mostly how not to, overcome dialectical tensions and conflict in relationships.Throughout the

movie, Andie’s goal is to lose Ben. Because of this, she lacks positivity. Andie constantly

whines, complains, and makes excuses for how Ben does not treat her right, “calls her fat,” or

even is attracted to other women. Positivity is one way they can better enhance their
relationship, along with openness, sharing thoughts, feelings, and just talking in an effort to get

to know each other better. All in all, their relationship would have been a completely different

story if they didn’t place bets on one another, and began with pursuing a genuine relationship.

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days: You’re so vain (HD CLIP)