This Netflix Original Is the Better Glen Powell Rom-Com

The Big Picture

Anyone but You lacks excitement and panache, feeling like a rigid emulation of relaxed rom-coms.
The film suffers from two lead actors who lack compelling chemistry and deliver dialogue in a similar snarky style.
Set It Up sets itself apart with its charming material, distinct lead performances, and a supporting cast that elevates the film's comedic moments.

There's something off about Anyone but You. While not without its charms (many of them found in a closing credit sing-along to Natasha Bedingfield's "Unwritten" and the comic chops of Glen Powell), too much of the film feels like rigid emulation of "relaxed" rom-coms rather than the real thing. Going through the expected narrative motions of these films (complete with tiny strained misunderstandings resulting in relationships falling apart) with little excitement or panache, Anyone but You could've used an extra jolt or two of energy. Its shortcomings are especially bizarre, though, considering its leading man previously inhabited a far superior romantic comedy that provided a great blueprint for how to pull off this kind of movie. Specifically, the 2018 Claire Scanlon motion picture Set It Up one-ups Anyone but You in nearly every way.

It's rare to say a Netflix Original Movie is artistically superior to a theatrical endeavor, but this is no case of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One putting Heart of Stone to shame. Pairing Powell up with Zoey Deutch for a frothy matchmaking romantic comedy turned out to be a recipe for a sweet cinematic diversion in Set It Up. It’s even easier to appreciate the pleasures of this particular production when one places it alongside Anyone but You. Romantic comedies often get dismissed as “junk food” and an easy target of ridicule by the general public, but there is an art to making one of these properly. Comparing Set It Up to Anyone but You exemplifies the qualities that separate the subpar entries in this genre from the ones people have talked about for years and years.

Set It Up

TV-14ComedyRomance

Two corporate executive assistants hatch a plan to match-make their two bosses.

Release Date June 15, 2018 Director Claire Scanlon Cast Zoey Deutch , Glen Powell , Lucy Liu , Taye Diggs Runtime 105 minutes Main Genre Comedy

What Makes a Good Rom-Com Couple?

One key to making a great romantic comedy? Get lead actors who are entertainingly different from one another. There’s so much innate entertainment to be wrung out of witnessing two personalities who shouldn’t even be in the same room together bounce off one another…and maybe it even becomes moving to see those disparate souls get intertwined in romance. Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn, for instance, couldn't be more different in terms of their big screen personas, which just made them such a perfect duo to anchor Roman Holiday. The stoic Peck made a great counterpoint to the younger spunky Hepburn. Similarly, the radically different personalities in the lead performances of When Harry Met Sally... are the cornerstone of that movie’s funniest moments. The initial animosity and increasing intimacy of the film's titular leads are such entertaining elements because Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan's performances seem to have come from different planets.

Set It Up is no When Harry Met Sally… or Moonstruck, but it does get a lot of charming material out of tapping into the innately very different demeanors of its two leads, Glen Powell and Zoey Deutch. Playing Harper Moore and Charlie Young, respectively, the duo make sure to inhabit distinctly unique sensibilities that can be incredibly fun to watch rub up against one another. Scanlon’s direction specifically seems to revolve around having Deutch convey a more modern sensibility in her lead performance, while Powell has a demeanor that appears rooted in more old-timey romantic comedies. They each sell those personalities nicely and their commitment to those auras makes watching the two characters spar as they try to set their toxic bosses up with one another an enjoyable experience. Powell had fewer comedies under his belt before Set It Up, but he did show up in one key feature that helped him get familiar with this genre: Everybody Wants Some!! That 2016 film also saw him rubbing shoulders with Deutch, which ensured the pair had some familiarity with one another before a frame of footage for Set It Up was shot.

‘Set It Up’ Review: The Romcom Genre Lives on Netflix

‘Set It Up’ could serve as the worthwhile beginning of a revival of the genre thanks to sharp writing and excellent performances from Zoey Deutch and Glen Powell.

By comparison, unfortunately, the leading performers of Anyone but You aren’t very compelling. The most glaring issue here is that Powell and Sydney Sweeney’s respective characters often speak in the same style of snarky sarcasm-laden dialogue, while their decidedly modern personalities often blur together. There are no real contrasts between the two regarding their world outlook, class, music tastes, comedic delivery, or anything else. That makes the movie more than a bit of a slog to sit through, as lengthy conversations between their respective characters just sound like one person chattering away to themselves. Meanwhile, Sydney Sweeney’s gifts as an actor (seen in some of the most viral scenes from Euphoria and the 2023 feature Reality) are not well-utilized here. Being experienced with dark dramas up to this point, Sweeney just seems a bit stilted with her comedic line deliveries while her most emotionally vulnerable moments come off as a tad insincere (a problem compounded by the entire film’s snarky overtones). Without a great pair of leads to anchor the proceedings on, Anyone but You is already sinking from the get-go, even before one places it alongside Set It Up.

'Set It Up' Is Just More Fun Than 'Anyone but You'

It’s not like every single element in Anyone but You is inferior to Set It Up. Most notably, the former film (with its pair of soon-to-be-wed lesbians) has way better LGBTQIA+ representation than the latter feature (which features Pete Davidson as the least believable gay roommate in a rom-com ever). However, in its most critical areas, Anyone but You’s lackluster qualities just feel even more frustrating when one remembers how much better Set It Up was years ago. This is especially true when it comes to the supporting casts of each movie. Unsurprisingly, Set It Up scores a massive win here since its ensemble of players includes the always iconic Lucy Liu as a malicious boss. Liu ingeniously leans into the inherently outsized nature of romantic comedies by chewing up the scenery and then some as only she can do.

As director Joel Schumacher once said, “No one ever paid to see under the top” and Liu lives up to that mantra with her hysterically maximalist work in Set It Up. Meanwhile, the likes of Taye Diggs and Meredith Hagner show up for charming supporting turns while a cameo from Tituss Burgess as a plant-obsessed janitor delivers some of the film's most absurdly amusing moments. The Anyone but You supporting cast, meanwhile, isn’t bad, they’re just not given much to do. Whereas a two-scene character like Burgess’s janitor in Set It Up gets a distinctive hobby and unique personality, supposedly key players in Anyone but You like Margaret (Charlee Fraser) or Pete (GaTa) barely get any dimensions at all. They’re just around to deliver expository dialogue, not generate laughs or let the creativity of the script run wild.

To add insult to injury, Claire Scanlon's visual sensibilities in Set It Up, while far from ambitious, at least get the job done and rarely undercut the jokes or actors on-screen. By contrast, Will Gluck's filmmaking in Anyone but You has a strange habit of derailing gags. The first big comedic set piece of the film, involving Sweeney's character trying to remove a water stain from her jeans, is awkwardly executed through clumsy blocking and camerawork that initially makes it difficult to tell what's even going on! It’s not like Set It Up has sublime cinematography and directing (it’s still got the distracting overly digital visual shortcomings Netflix movies have), it’s just that it’s often competent enough to let us appreciate the actors on-screen. Anyone but You, meanwhile, often features ramshackle editing and blocking that dilutes whatever joys can be found in its surface-level pleasures.

It's easy to take for granted the intricacies of a romantic comedy. These films and their hallmarks (like a climactic mad rush to the airport) have been lampooned so much in our culture that it's easy to forget all the craftsmanship that goes into the greatest entries of this genre. Even a fluffy diversion like Set It Up has virtues to offer that set it apart from weaker phoned-in movies like Anyone but You. If one wants to see how to both produce a decent romantic-comedy and properly utilize Glen Powell as a rom-com lead, then Set It Up is your movie.

Set It Up is available on Netflix in the U.S.

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