'Anyone But You' Is Not The Mid-Budget Rom-Com Blockbuster We Asked For

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The great rom-com stars make it look easy. Meg Ryan, Julia Roberts, Drew Barrymore: When they fall in love on-screen, their charm pulls us in and the transparency of their emotions enables us to feel every moment of yearning and every thrill just as their characters do. But a rom-com lead can also, we recently discovered, turn in such a limp performance that it makes the sheer difficulty of being a rom-com lead obvious. Sydney Sweeney is a good actress, and she was surely trying to put in a rousing performance as the female lead ofthe recent film “Anyone But You.” It just doesn’t work.