Such an unwieldy title for a movie that is straightforward and predictable. The movie is loosely based on the memoirs of Toby Young who spent five years writing for Vanity Fair. This is a fact that you would likely not know unless you read it somewhere (like this review), as the magazine has been changed to the fictional Sharps and the lead's name has become Sidney Young. In the end it does not matter much, as the end result would likely be the same. Heck, I am not even sure quite how close this gets to the truth, although I have my suspicions that this is not very close to the reality of the story and if it is, then Young has lived a romantic comedy cliche. Interesting.
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People is the story of Sidney Young (Simon Pegg), publisher of a small celebrity rag in the UK. The stories that he writes are all in a witty and sarcastic tone as he takes celebrity culture to task, as much as one can in his limited position. On top of his "unique" brand of humor, he is saddled with, shall we say, questionable social skills, as evidenced by his attempts to get beyond the velvet ropes and into the celeb parties.
His fortunes take a turn when he gets a call from Clayton Harding (Jeff Bridges), publisher of Sharps magazine, and Young's personal hero. Sidney drops his magazine and flies across the pond, filled with ambition, believing that he has "arrived." He continues his boorish ways and in doing so does exactly what the title says. His boss barely tolerates him, he alienates the publicists whose stars he is writing about, and there is only one person who even comes close to tolerating him, Alison Olsen (Kirsten Dunst), but he barely notices half the time due to his fixation on up and coming starlet Sophie Maes (Megan Fox).
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