If you have been fortunate enough to avoid firsthand experience with dating horror stories, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days will provide you with enough for multiple lifetimes and then some.

Director Donald Retrie has had his share of experience with romantic comedies, having directed past hits Mystic Pizza and Miss Congeniality. Based on the book, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, the Universal Don'ts of Dating, the film offers an exclusive look into what it's like to date a girl that, at times, resembles a deranged Kathie Lee Gifford clone.

Set in New York City, the premise, although improbable, is promisingly riotous.

Andie Anderson, played by Kate Hudson, is a how-to columnist for Composure magazine -- think Cosmopolitan with fewer letters. Stuck writing about cuticle care and diet pills, she longs to write about issues that truly matter to her, such as the starving children of Tajikistan. And you thought no one cared.

Inspired by her friend's floundering love life and hoping that she can prove to her editor that she is good enough to write articles about political issues, Andie decides to write a column on, you guessed it, how to lose a guy in 10 days.

Matthew McConaughey plays Benjamin Barry, advertising executive who yearns to leave behind his days of sports equipment and beer commercials so he can move on to more prestigious items -- in this case, diamonds. However, he can get the diamond campaign only if he can make a girl fall in love with him in, what else, 10 days.

What follows is uproarious.

Imagine a crazy ex-girlfriend and if you are having some trouble, picture the girl next to you in Philosophy class. Now inject her with some crack cocaine, get her diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, have her swallow a handful of caffeine pills, make sure she's dealing with major PMS, and if she's still alive after that you have the woman that Benjamin has to deal with.

Realistically, after two days of being with a girl like Andie, any sane man would have changed his name and relocated to South Dakota, or at least gotten new locks on his apartment door and superglued the windows shut. I'd like to see a male who could put up with his girlfriend nicknaming his willy Princess Sophia.

But Benjamin is not just any man. He is a man with a bet.

The first two-thirds of the film continue in a fast paced hodgepodge of hilarity. Both sexes can relate to the tribulations that Andie and Ben go through. Guys are guaranteed to sympathize with Ben; the movie is worth seeing if just for that reason.

I'm going to assume that the finale will not be spoiled for anyone by stating that Andie Anderson and Benjamin Barry --; is the alliteration making you wince yet? -- fall in love. After all, the fact that the hero and heroine get together is a foregone conclusion in romantic comedies.

But with the last half hour, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days discontinues any attempt at humor and instead succumbs to the formulaic and predictable sappy ending of the romantic comedy.