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10 Self-help Books That Should Be Barrymore Films

Well, this weekend finally sees the release of He’s Just Not That Into You, the massively anticipated film adaptation of the popular narrativeless self-improvement book. Bad reviews aside, the movie’s existence is an impressive example of Hollywood’s endless capacity for commercial creativity: Just because Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo’s bestseller doesn’t feature a “story” or “characters,” per se, doesn’t mean a studio can’t quickly knock out a screenplay with a role for Drew Barrymore. So what’s next? Which self-help guides, social-philosophy manuals, or Business 2.0 bibles might provide premises for Barrymore’s upcoming romantic comedies? We speculate!

After passing out on her couch following an evening of hard partying, Drew Barrymore has an epiphany in which a benevolent spirit (Kirk Cameron) convinces her to drop her life of dudes and drugs and travel to New Orleans to help rebuild churches in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. While there, she encounters a kind preacher (Stephen Baldwin) and a rugged grocery-store worker (two-time NFL MVP Kurt Warner) who help her find the path to salvation… and maybe even love!
Unlucky in love and tired of men, Drew Barrymore sets out to amass all of the world’s power, following each of the rules in Robert Greene’s creepy step-by-step guide. She crushes her enemies totally (No. 15), enters action with boldness (No. 28), and plays on people’s need to believe to create a cultlike following (No. 27) - but will a chance encounter with a high-school crush make it tricky to abide by Law No. 20 (“Do Not Commit to Anyone”)?
Drew Barrymore plays a woman being pursued by two brothers - a computer programmer with 10,000 hours experience and a hockey player born in October, who, thus, will probably never amount to anything (both are played by Josh Lucas). Her Asian friend (who is great at math, obviously) points out that the programmer makes more money, but Drew ultimately picks the hockey player when he successfully lands an airplane after its Colombian pilot runs out of gas but is too shy to tell air traffic control.
Drew Barrymore headlines as a woman whose romantic difficulties are almost as bad as her task-completion problems. One day, she attends a David Allen seminar and learns the importance of a workflow process, a framework with six levels of focus, and a natural planning method. The plot is advanced when she drafts an ordered list of her goals: (1) Have a string of failed relationships with perfect-seeming guys who turn out to be jerks, and (2) Meet and fall in love with a jerky-seeming guy who turns out to be perfect - and tackles them in a timely fashion.
Drew Barrymore emerges from a four-year coma, making her Earth’s only woman unaware of the pickup technique outlined in The Game. PUA “Mystery” (played onscreen by Jimmy Fallon) successfully seduces her using a series of negs and kino ladders. When she realizes what happened, she’s furious, but eventually she learns to look past his douchey exterior to the douche underneath. The film ends tragicomically when he chokes on his hat.
Drew Barrymore stars as a free-spirited Northwestern economics grad student who ventures into the Cabrini Green projects on the north side of Chicago to research the lives of drug dealers. Along the way, she finds herself drawn to a dashing young man (Tristan Wilds, The Wire) who yearns to escape the lifestyle and move with her to the suburbs of Evanston. The two quickly begin falling for each other, but one thing stands in the way of their blossoming romance: the fact that he still lives with his hilariously outspoken mother (Martin Lawrence).
Drew Barrymore toplines this romantic comedy as an astrophysics professor dying of congenital heart disease. On the day of her last-ever lecture, during which she imparts the accumulated wisdom of her lifetime, she realizes that she’s in love with the brilliant head of the university’s Biology department (Adam Sandler), who has always had a crush on her. At movie’s end, he presents her with a new heart, which he built in his laboratory.
Drew Barrymore plays an underachieving high-school junior who finds herself torn between her quarterback boyfriend (Chace Crawford) and the bookish tutor (James Franco) who’s helping her prepare for her standardized tests. On the morning of the SAT, she experiences a series of Slumdog Millionaire-style flashbacks that not only demonstrate how her life experiences align perfectly with the questions she finds on the test, but also point her toward her romantic destiny.
Drew Barrymore plays a laid-off American who falls in love via video conference with the Bangalorean remote assistant (Dev Patel) to whom her old job is outsourced. Patel’s character teaches Drew’s the importance of being a specialized, adaptable worker. In turn, she misdials his telephone number and unwittingly averts a war between India and Pakistan.
10 Self-help Books That Should Be Barrymore Films