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Whether you love it or hate it—or just hate that you might, kinda, maybe be chill with it—Will Gluck’s Anyone But You has found its audience. The Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell two-hander defied critics and connected with plenty of folks happy to bake in the Australian sun as the film’s stars swam around Port Jackson Bay and debated what it means to be “hot girl fit.” In theaters, the movie over-performed and grossed more than $200 million worldwide, and now on Netflix it’s soared to the top of the movie viewing chart around the world.

It turns out folks love an old-fashioned romantic comedy (surprise) when the leads are attractive and the jokes land. And even when some jokes do not land, the structure of Anyone But You’s story is sound. Indeed, its tale about two one-night stand exes who insist they hate each...

Warning! This article contains Spoilers for Anyone But You.

Anyone But You adapts Much Ado About Nothing with changes like a gender-swapped Claudio and setting. The film shares character names with the original play but adds new backstories and dynamics. Unlike Much Ado About Nothing, Anyone But You lacks a villain, focuses more on Bea and Ben, and omits the fake dating storyline.

Anyone But You is based on the classic Shakespeare comedy Much Ado About Nothing, but some major changes were made to the source material. Much Ado About Nothing has been adapted for the screen multiple times, notably in a 31-year-old movie starring Denzel Washington, Kenneth Branaugh, Keanu Reeves, Emma Thompson, and more. While Anyone But You frequently references the Shakespeare play and takes its main enemies-to-lovers romance from the comedy, many details set it apart from Much Ado About Nothing.

Anyone But You and Much Ado About Nothing share a similar premise.

Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they've been watching, why it's worth checking out, and where you can stream it.

The Movie: "Much Ado About Nothing" (1993)

Where You Can Stream It: HBO Max, DirecTV

The Pitch: Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation of William Shakespeare's "Henry V," the filmmaker's first feature, was a massive success when it was released in 1989. Branagh was nominated for Best Actor and Best Director, and Phyllis Dalton won the Oscar for Best Costumes. The film caused a great deal of buzz around Branagh, and audiences kept a close eye on him. In 1989, he married actress Emma Thompson (who played Katherine in "Henry V"), and the two of them would proceed to work together incredibly well on several notable films. Thompson co-starred with Branagh in the excellent reincarnation thriller "Dead Again" in 1991, and she appeared as...

Much Ado, lest anyone be in any doubt, is intended as rom com. It is based on a comedy by William Shakespeare and centres on the trials and tribulations that attend two on-again/off-again romantic pairings that emerge when a group of soldiers arrive in town.

It is also, in the way of many such similar stories, made infuriating, confusing, perplexing and sometimes, even fascinating to a modern audience by the fact the plot is awash with characters saying the opposite of what they really think or pretending to be someone quite other than who they are. It's a trope that seems to have fallen out of favour, with the decline of farce in the British theatre. Perhaps that’s in part because modern audiences find the studied ignorance required to suspend belief under such extreme circumstances is just too much.

Still, Elizabethan audiences seem to have liked it. Thus,...