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HE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU Send This Review to a Friend
Whatever one thinks of “He’s Just Not That Into You,” the problem at the heart of this film blatantly targeted at women is a real one. The process of unmarried women trying to find Mr. Right engenders genuine tension accentuated, as the film points out, by contemporary technology. Now one doesn’t merely have to check an answer machine to see if the new guy with potential has called. There are cell phones that can be obsessively checked all day long, as well as the constant clicking on internet sites devoted to meeting people. The opportunities may be greater than hanging out at bars, but so are the possibilities for frustration when nothing is going right.
That said, there is more silliness than enlightenment in this high-profile flick, directed by Ken Kwapis and scripted by Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein based on the book by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo. Some of it is played for laughs, some for romance, some for skewering men and their reluctance to commit and some for holding out hope. At an afternoon performance, I looked around and saw many smiling faces of young women who perhaps were enjoying the recognition of what they have experienced. And yet the women portrayed on screen are quite a ditsy lot, albeit portrayed by a good cast. Ditto for the guys.
There is also a particularly annoying plot turn that smacks of pandering. Jennifer Aniston plays Beth, who has been in a happy relationship with Ben Affleck as Neil for seven years, but she is upset because he doesn’t believe in marriage, while her younger sister is set for a big wedding. Beth splits up with Neil. Yet she misses him terribly, and they eventually reunite, she acquiescing to his terms of maintaining their loving partnership without marriage. Seems like a nice statement about a chosen, agreed-upon lifestyle. Then presto, what happens? He buys her a ring. Marriage becomes the be-all after all. That could, of course, happen, but it fits glibly into the film’s view of marriage as the pot of gold.
The most compulsive of the characters is Gigi, played with good-natured charm by Ginnifer Goodwin. Gigi throws herself at guys in perpetual hope, but misreads signals. She strikes up a friendship with Alex (Justin Long) who becomes her confidant and advises her platonically, which she mistakes for romantic interest. Guess what eventually happens?
Scarlett Johansson plays Anna, a sexy number (realistic casting here) who starts up an affair with the married Ben (Bradley Cooper), whose relationship with his wife Janine (Jennifer Connelly) has grown cold. The situation leads to a rather unbelievable but funny scene in Ben’s office.
The film is built around advice to women on how to read men, and there is one funny bit in which two hefty African-American gals talk hilariously about how men break up and make the woman think it is for their own good.
Overall, the film portrays various characters as totally fixated on landing men, who generally aren’t all that worth landing. Absent is any sense of mature women leading independent lives of value.
But the underlying, universal problem of finding a mate is nevertheless there for the exploiting, which this film does with its lowest common denominator approach that bids to make it popular. The cast also includes Kevin Connolly, Kris Kristofferson and Drew Barrymore. A Warner Brothers Pictures release.
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