Man Up (film)

Plot

Nancy is 34 years old and single. Her sister hopes that Nancy can find love and encourages her to "put herself out there." Nancy has a failed blind date at her friend's engagement party.

Later, Nancy's parents are celebrating their 40th anniversary, so Nancy takes the train to London. On the train, Nancy sits across from Jessica, a 24-year-old woman who is going on a blind date based on a self-help book called 6 Billion People and You. Nancy is rude to Jessica, so Jessica leaves her copy of the book with Nancy, bookmarking Chapter 7, "Your Negative Thoughts are Ruining Your Life (And Everyone Else's...)". When disembarking the train, Nancy pursues Jessica to return the book, but is stopped by Jack, Jessica's blind date. Nancy decides to take a chance and pretend that she is Jessica, and the pair have a very good time drinking and bowling, but Nancy's ruse is destroyed when they run into Nancy's creepy secondary school acquaintance, Sean.

Nancy and Jack argue and return to the bar, where they run into Jack's soon-to-be-ex-wife with the man she is having an affair with. Nancy has to console Jack in the bathroom and helps him achieve closure.

Nancy wants to invite Jack to her parents' anniversary party -- but Jessica has left telephone messages for Jack and still wants to meet up, so he parts ways with Nancy. Nancy arrives at her parent's party, but is very sad and Jack also quickly realizes that letting her go was a mistake. He enlists the help of Sean and some teenagers to find Nancy's house and they decide to take a chance on each other.

Cast

Production

In June 2013, it was announced Simon Pegg had joined the Big Talk production, co-starring as the romantic interest. On 19 November 2013 Lake Bell joined the cast as the film's lead, with The Inbetweeners director Ben Palmer set to direct. The film received funding from BBC Films, with Anton Capital Entertainment and Amazon Prime Instant Video joining as minor production partners. StudioCanal distributed the film.

Olivia Williams, Rory Kinnear, Stephen Campbell Moore, Sharon Horgan, Harriet Walter, and Ken Stott joined the cast of the film during the filming. Principal photography began on 20 January 2014 in London.

Release

Man Up was released theatrically in the United Kingdom on 29 May 2015 by StudioCanal following its premiere at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival on 19 April. The film was released in the United States by Saban Films on 13 November 2015.

The film received positive reviews from critics. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an 81% "Certified Fresh" rating based on 67 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10. The site's consensus states: "Thanks to fine performances from Lake Bell and Simon Pegg, Man Up largely strikes the deceptively difficult balance between romance and comedy." On Metacritic, the film holds a 69 out of 100 rating, based on 16 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".