The film “What’s Your Number?” stars Anna Faris as Ally Darling, a typical romantic comedy single woman in distress. The movie’s title refers to the number of people someone has had sex with. Ally has had 20 lovers, a sign apparently that she is destined to die alone. She enlists the help of Colin, the local player played by Chris Evans, to help her track down her exes. Her goal is to see whether she missed “the one” in all of the fray. Her lost loves range from a puppeteer to a gay guy. It’s kind of like “The Ghosts of Boyfriends Past.”
The film is based on Karyn Bosnak’s novel “20 Times a Lady.” The heroine of the book was named Delilah Darling. Delilah learns in The New York Post that the average person has 10.5 sexual partners in their lifetime. At almost age 30 with 20 partners, she believes her numbers are askew.
Anna Faris tells The New York Post, “I think when the movie was with another studio, before I was attached to it, the studio wanted to lessen the number to 16. They just thought 20 was way too high. And now it feels like 20 is kind of low. But what was driving those questions was, ‘Is this going to put an audience off?’”
This is fun, romantic fare, not meant to save the world or cure diseases. It’s just entertainment, and for that reason I love a solid romantic comedy. However, the premise of this film reinforces antiquated notions of chastity.
“What’s Your Number?” presupposes that if a woman is sexually open or even promiscuous that there are ramifications and punishments. In this case the assumed punishment is that she’s destined to die a lonely crone in a house full of cats. Aren’t we tired of “slut-shaming” already? At the end of the day Ally’s “number” as a single and dating woman doesn’t matter and neither should anyone else’s. If the protagonist was male he’d be trying to bump his number up!
“What’s Your Number?” is rated R for sexual content and language. The film is distributed by 20th Century Fox and the cast includes Ari Graynor, Blythe Danner, and Ed Begley Jr. with varied performances. Mark Mylod is the director and the producers include Beau Flynn, Tripp Vinson, and Nan Morales. Mylod also directed “Ali G Indahouse.”
As your lifestyle journalist who writes about love, sex, dating, and relationships, I have no idea what “the number” is of anyone around me. The truth is that I actually don’t care. Before you begin a personal search for the “best ex of your life,” you should note that Rotten Tomatoes seems to indicate audiences agree. The film has a rating of only 23 percent approval. I guess that’s their number.
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