What’s in a name? The dumb movie trend that needs to end

Have you seen that movie? You know the one, what’s it called? Anyone But the Idea of Us? Is that it? Yeah, that’s it.

In the past year there have been a handful of high-profile releases that everyone is talking about but no one remembers the names of.

Apparently, the latest trend in Hollywood is to give your movie a generic and unmemorable name.

Why? We’re really not sure. It’s definitely not for SEO value, there are no keywords.

So, what explains the phenomenon of Anyone But You, The Idea of You, It Ends with Us and Nobody Wants This?

A fondness for fuzzy befuddlement? A penchant for pronouns?

It’s truly bemusing, even if, in the case of two of them, they were saddled with the names of the books they adapted.

Or maybe the studios really just wanted those movies to be known as “That Anne Hathaway movie where she hooks up with not-Harry Styles”.

A movie or TV title needs some real nouns, preferably a proper noun. Because “you”, “us” and “nobody” leads to a whole lot of “ah, who?!”. It’s like a clickbait headline, it doesn’t give you any sense of what the story actually is.

Think of how evocative some rom-com names are, drawing on specific details such as a place, a person or a holiday and event.

If you hear the geographically-centred titles of Notting Hill, Sleepless in Seattle, Fire Island, Roman Holiday and My Big Fat Greek Wedding, you know exactly which movies they are and where they’re set.

Or it could incorporate the characters’ names, such as When Harry Met Sally, Bridget Jones’ Diary, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Sabrina, Amelie, How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Annie Hall. No mistaking who they’re about.

The event or time-specific movies have included The Holiday, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Groundhog Day and While You Were Sleeping.

There’s also the tradition of including a number - Four Weddings and a Funeral, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, 13 Going on 30/Suddenly 30, 50 First Dates, It Happened One Night, 10 Things I Hate About You, (500) Days of Summer, This is 40, One Fine Day, Two Weeks’ Notice and 27 Dresses.

Go on, throw a number in there and it’s bound to make a list of 18 rom-coms to watch when it’s raining outside.

Morgan Freeman was once on The Graham Norton Show and shared his theory on why The Shawshank Redemption, a veritable classic, didn’t make money when it was originally released, and it had to do with the disfluency and unfamiliarity of the name.

He postulated, “People went to see The Shawshank Redemption and they came back and said, ‘I saw this really terrific movie and it’s called the… (long pause)… um… shan-sham-shin-shon’. One day someone saw me in the elevator and said, ‘I saw you in the Hudsucker Reduction’. So if you can’t get the word across, then it doesn’t do well.”

Of course, now everyone knows and remembers The Shawshank Redemption, whose esteem has only grown. The key here is it was a great movie with weighty themes, fantastic performances and, yes, a name that eventually stuck.

Admittedly, Anyone But You did make bank, as did It Ends With Us while The Idea of You and Nobody Wants This were streaming releases that captured the zeitgeist for at least a couple of weeks, which is the grace most streaming titles get.

But what will their enduring legacies be? Will anyone remember Anyone But You in 20 years when it was both quite a terrible movie and has a name that flits straight out of your mind?

We took a stab at some alternatives:

ANYONE BUT YOU

Who’s in it: Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell

What it’s actually about: Two hot people hook up, have a misunderstanding, hate each other and then are thrown together at a destination wedding where they pretend to be into each other to get their family and friends off their backs. It’s loosely based on William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.

What it’s better known as: That movie where Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell might’ve been having an affair because of sizzling pap photos from the Sydney set but they couldn’t have been because they have no onscreen chemistry. Also, it has that Natasha Beddingfield song from that 2000s TV show everyone was obsessed with.

What should it be called: The Two Sydneys (a number, a place and a person’s name!)

THE IDEA OF YOU

Who’s in it: Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine

What it’s actually about: Solene is a 40-year-old divorced mum who meets a 20-something boy group pop star at Coachella. They spark and start dating, making it awkward for her teenage daughter and stirring the fury of all the young groupies.

What it’s better known as: The movie that was not inspired by Harry Styles and his predilection for older women, but it definitely was.

What should it be called: Solene Gets Her Groove Back

IT ENDS WITH US

Who’s in it: Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni and Brandon Sklenar

What it’s actually about: It Ends With Us is billed as a romantic drama, but it’s really about domestic abuse and one woman’s journey to confront the inherited trauma of experiencing her father’s violence towards her mother and repeating those patterns in her own life.

What it’s better known as: The movie that got Blake Lively cancelled after her cringe promo campaign in which she was sledged for being a mean girl, tried to sell you shampoo and implored audiences to “wear your florals” and grab their friends for a fun girls day watching domestic violence. There were also endless news cycles of an on-set feud between Lively and Baldoni.

What should it be called: The Scandal Starts Here

NOBODY WANTS THIS

Who’s in it: Kristen Bell and Adam Brody

What it’s actually about: A sex podcaster meets a hot rabbi and despite their undeniable chemistry, must face questions of how an interfaith relationship will work when his job and vocation demands he marry a Jewish woman.

What it’s better known as: That genuinely funny and sweet rom-com everyone is telling you to watch and which reminded us all that we love Adam Brody and that we should always have more Adam Brody in our lives.

What should it be called: Hot Rabbi