2024 is proving to be the year that Sydney Sweeney’s star goes stratospheric. Her newest feature film Immaculate, in which she plays an American nun at a convent in Italy, is already wowing critics ahead of its release. Her turn as a Saturday Night Live host a few weeks ago set the internet abuzz, with the show largely making jokes about and playing off of her attractiveness in skits. She’s also enough of an “it girl” to weather the disaster of appearing in Madame Webb, while her rom-com Anyone But You which was re-released on Valentine’s Day has been crushing it at the box office for weeks.
The Sony blockbuster — starring Sweeney and Glen Powell as two characters who can’t stand each other but pretend to be in love to make their exes jealous — has had a monster run in theaters, raking in $200 million off of a mere $25 budget for the film. So it’s no wonder that Netflix couldn’t resist announcing to the world that Anyone But You is on its way to the biggest streamer in the world, with a Netflix release set for just over a month from now.
“ANYONE BUT YOU ON NETFLIX APRIL 23,” the official Netflix X/Twitter account declared Tuesday, adding a whistle-face emoji.
In an interview with Variety at SXSW, Sweeney raved that the overwhelmingly positive reaction from viewers has been gratifying. “Seeing people shut off the outside world and feel all the emotions we wanted them to feel while we were making it, then leave the theater singing and dancing and wanting to fall in love — that is what the movie theatergoing experience is supposed to ignite inside you,” she said.
Anyone But You, we should add, also marks another instance of a wide chasm opening up between critics and viewers in terms of their response to a film. On Rotten Tomatoes, Anyone But You currently has a pretty terrible 56% critics score (based on 100 reviews) that stands alongside a strong 87% audience score derived from over 1,000 verified user ratings. “Cute movie,” one those viewers opined. “Was a good rom com to watch with your SO. More com than rom. Very good movie.”