Andie Anderson from “How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days” (2003)

What Actually Happened: After Andie (Kate Hudson) finds out she’s been conned by her ad-man boyfriend Ben (Matthew McConaughey)—and Ben, in turn, discovers he’s been used as fodder for an embarrassing article in his girlfriend’s magazine—it appears the couple is dunzo. That is, until Andie takes to the pages of Composure to confess her love for Ben, who simultaneously realizes life isn’t worth living without her, either. The curly-haired Lothario jumps on his motorcycle and nearly causes a 10-car pile-up on the Brooklyn Bridge as he tries to catch up with Andie’s cab. After seeing Ben in the rearview mirror, Andie demands the driver pull over so she can hear what he has to say. Ben’s all, “Did you mean what you said in the magazine about, like, loving me and stuff?” Andie’s all, “Yeah, totally.” Then the two make-out on the side of the bridge while the people in passing cars give them the middle finger for slowing down traffic.

What Would’ve Happened: Ben furiously chases after Andie on his motorcycle, but she never tells the cab to slow down and eventually outruns the advertising playboy. The newly single (and unemployed) writer successfully moves to Washington D.C. and lands a job as a reporter at the Washington Bureau of Mother Jones, where she can write about politics, economics, religion, poverty and other non-Composure-related topics. Wanting to unite the media community, Andie starts a monthly meetup for female journalists in D.C.; then, in 2008, she wins The Western Publications Association’s Maggie Award for Best Feature Article for “The Last Empire: China’s Polution Problem Goes Global” and is asked to serve on the board of the Neiman Journalism Lab.