He's Just Not That Into You - Or Is He?
Movie Based on SATC Spin-off Advice Book Gets Laughs, Answers
Feb 18, 2009
The movie is more serious than its commercials make it appear to be and less serious than a screenplay based on the book could have been. Writers Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, both writers from “Sex and the City,” address issues as frothy as “He’s not into you if he’s staring at the blonde across the bar while you’re talking,” to the serious stuff – he’s not into you if he abuses you in any way. The movie keeps it light, although not without a little delving into the dark abyss of male-female relationships.
He’s Just Not That Into You if He Doesn’t Pay Attention to You
He doesn’t call. He doesn’t pick up your calls. He shook your hand, gave you a chaste hug or ended a date with “nice to meet you.” Ladies, says the movie, take a hint: he’s not busy, he’s not out of town, he didn’t lose his phone, he’s not shy. He’s just not that into you. Maybe one guy out there really did lose his phone. Your guy is not that one guy.
The whole point of this movie is that a person’s love situation is not the exception, it’s the rule. That’s what Mac guy Justin Long’s playboy character Alex lectures to Ginnifer Goodwin’s Gigi. When a blind date, Connor, (Kevin Connolly), never calls Gigi again, she ends up in Alex’s bar. Not only does he know Connor, he also knows men. He guides her through her dating adventures, even telling her to run from any man who is not interested in her. Her response? “There won’t be any left!”
…If He Won’t Marry You
Gigi takes the lesson to the office to tell her sister Janine (Jennifer Connelly) and friend Beth (Jennifer Aniston). What Beth hears is that even though one of her friend’s sisters has a friend who knows someone who lived with her boyfriend for 13 years and then they got married, she should not expect the same. Her friend’s sister’s friend is the exception. Beth is the rule. Beth and Neil (Ben Affleck) break up because he doesn’t believe in marriage.
… If He’s Married to Someone Else
Janine and her husband Ben (Bradley Cooper) just bought a house and are talking about children. What she doesn’t know is he’s also talking to Anna (Scarlett Johansson), a yoga instructor and aspiring singer whom he met at the grocery store and volunteered to help with her career. The affair starts out with seemingly simple flirting outside the grocery store and goes public when Ben blurts out his infidelity. Janine wants to work it out. Anna, who’s playing with Connor on the side, would rather have Ben. Ben can’t make up his mind what he really wants and ends up alone.
Happily Ever After?
The movie has enough awkward scenes to make the dating debacles seem realistic, and audience members connected with the characters and rooted for them to find happiness. For some it came with the familiar; at her sister’s wedding Beth’s father has a heart attack, and she’s left in charge of the family. She comes downstairs one day to find her sisters’ husbands watching TV and asking her to make a beer run, while Neil showed up unexpectedly, cleaned the kitchen and did laundry and shopping. Beth decides she wants what they had before; Neil makes the leap and proposes.
Anna becomes a singer, Janine kicks Ben out and asks for a divorce, Alex finally realizes all of his advice has led him to ignore all the rules because he's in love with Gigi, who becomes the girl whose guy just didn't get it, and Connor ends up with Drew Barrymore’s character Mary, who most often pops up for comic relief and to reminisce about the days when she got dumped in person instead of by cell phone, text message, e-mail and MySpace. The movie is randomly broken up by headings from the book and vignettes from others about dating experiences. The film, although not for people actually looking for dating advice, is great for people with short attention spans or who are looking for a slightly different type of romantic comedy.
For that’s what it became. With the cast including who it does and the story lines following as they do, the film falls into the genre it was trying to avoid. It has edgy moments, and some wisdom and wit is dispensed, but for the most part it’s a pleasantly predictable movie with just enough conflict to keep its viewers entertained.
For the really hard-hitting advice, although not without plenty of humor, check out the book “He’s Just Not That Into You.”
