How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

The total structure of the chick-flick category looks something like this:

All chick-flicks basically come in two varieties, romantic fluff and extremely tragic weepfests, so after you mention that a film is a standard formula Hollywood romantic comedy, there's only so much more to add.

There are several sub-divisions of the Teenage Chick-flick, romantic comedy division, and this one comes from the "irritating cross-purposes" sub-division, with a touch of "the lame gimmick" as well. In every form of romantic comedy, it is essential to maintain some kind of tension in the audience. This is our foreplay, creating a build-up which is released when the suitors finally come together, as they inevitably must. There are plenty of ways to do this, but films from the "irritating cross-purposes" sub-division do it by making the audience as uncomfortable as possible. Two common techniques:

Irritation Method 1: The characters narrowly miss each other over and over again throughout the movie. One boards the train to Chicago while the other disembarks from the next car down. One gets out of the elevator on the 11th floor just a second after the other has entered the adjoining elevator, etc. The first time a film did this, about three days after films were invented, it was kinda cute but stupid. If a latter day film does it once, it's lame but forgivable. If any movie does it more than once, all negatives and prints of that film should be destroyed, and the writer should be executed publicly, preferably by guillotine in a third world country that can't afford to sharpen the blade.

Irritation Method 2: The characters make a bet. One falls in love, and gets really pissed off when he/she finds out that the other person was simply courting them to win a bet. Well, of course the bettor really fell in love in the course of that faux courtship, and then has to win the offended party back for real.

This particular film takes irritation method number two to the limit - as stoners used to say, "to the royal max". Both parties have a bet or something like a bet. Matthew is an advertising dude who will get a chance to pitch an important female client if he can demonstrate his charm by getting a woman to fall in love with him in ten days. Kate writes for a magazine like Cosmo, and is doing an ironic article on how to lose a great man in ten days by committing every possible dating faux pas. To make the article realistic, she needs a real man for her experiment. As luck would have it, in a city the size of New York, these two people with diametrically opposed ten day projects begin their ten days on the same day. With each other.

Who would have dreamed?

A Hollywood script writer, for one.

Oh, well, you have the idea, right? They hook up at a party. They have a "normal" first date to set the hook, and agree to continue dating. From then on, he tries to be Mr. Charm while she tries to get him to dump her.

He spends all day making roast of lamb in cherry sauce, then she says meat makes her vomit. She forces him to sit through Fried Green Tomatoes and an entire chick-flick marathon. She screws up his enjoyment of every game while the Knicks are winning the NBA finals. (Talk about unlikely romantic fantasies!). She ruins his poker night with the boys. She makes him show love for a really obnoxious little over-manicured dog which pees on his beloved poker table. As Yul Brynner would say if he were here, "etcetera, etcetera, etcetera".

I don't much care for "irritating cross-purposes" movies, because they eventually require us to want the lovers to come together, after we have seen that one of them is an insincere asshole capable of using someone without thinking about their feelings. In this case,  both of them are insincere assholes who use other people without considering their feelings, so I guess that makes it OK. They deserve one another.

If you like this sort of thing, the production values are fine, Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson are pretty good at this, and

... take it, Yul ...

 "etcetera, etcetera, etcetera".