He's Just Not That Into You

We've all heard it, and some of us have said it: "I'm so glad I'm not out there anymore." It's the kind of statement that is made after observing the elaborately convoluted nature of the modern mating ritual. He's Just Not That Into You, a humorous and heartfelt take on the sometimes excruciating and frequently exhilarating nature of love, will evoke that sentiment in spades.

Witty and clever, the film offers observations about the awkwardness of first dates, anxiety-ridden days spent waiting for the telephone to ring, the obsession with achieving the perfect marriage, and the temptations that arise to violate the sanctity of that commitment. He's Just Not is like an American version of Love Actually, a tragicomedy that doles out romantic success and failure in equal measure.

The plot is episodic, structurally linked by When Harry Met Sally–style interludes in which characters who aren't part of the narrative relay funny anecdotes before a title card announces the start of a new chapter: ("He's just not that into you if he's not calling you," or "… if he's sleeping with someone else," or "… if he's not marrying you," etc.)

Justin Long as Alex, Ginnifer Goodwin as Gigi

See if you can keep this all straight. Ben (Bradley Cooper) is married to Janine (Jennifer Connelly), but is considering having an affair with Anna (Scarlett Johansson), whom Conor (Kevin Connolly) is also pining for when he's not fending off Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin), who only went out with him once but thinks she may have met her soul mate (but she always thinks that), despite the fact that Conor's friend Alex (Justin Long) has been advising her to stop sitting next to the phone and wise up. OK, now stop and catch your breath here.

Meanwhile, Neil (Ben Affleck) and Beth (Jennifer Anniston) share a long-term, stable, faithful relationship, but no matter how much Beth pleads, Neil refuses to take the next step and commit to marriage, the sort of fairytale pledge Mary (Drew Barrymore) would love to see come to pass if she can just find the one straight guy among her vast support network of gay men. Got all that?

Given that He's Just Not That Into You is based on the book by ex-Sex and the City scribes Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, it's surprising how little it's about sex. Sex is part of the story, but this is a film about longing more than anything else. It is about the lies we tell others and ourselves. And it is about that moment when we truly become adults, put away childish things and learn to love without pretext or qualification.

Ben Affleck as Neil, Jennifer Aniston as Beth

Gigi is the film's everywoman, our anthropological guide to this twenty/thirty-something world of Baltimore-ites caught up in the agony and ecstasy of modern romance. Gigi isn't expecting too much: if a guy says he's going to call her, she expects him to call. She doesn't understand the rules of the game and needs someone like Alex to set her straight. If Gigi is the naive innocent, Alex has seen and done it all. He is the wise sage, blowing the cover of men everywhere. When Gigi insists that perhaps that week's uncommunicative beau didn't call because he lost her number or she missed his message, Alex unemotionally and factually responds, "Or maybe he just didn't call because he has no interest in seeing you again."

Gigi finds Alex's merciless truth telling strangely liberating. Rather than crushing her spirit, she finds Alex's advice—which she mines again and again—like a relationship decoder ring, deciphering the inscrutable behavior of the men she meets. Why is it, the film asks, that are we so bad at communicating with each other? Why do we so misread the signals others send? And why do we play games with each other's fragile hearts?

Ultimately, the carousing Alex is hoisted on his own petard when the student becomes the teacher. Alex may understand how the game is played, but that is only because he has so often played it. He may know the ins and outs of how men and women hook up, but he is ignorant of how they fall in love. As a result, his every relationship is vapid and shallow. Gigi may have made her fair share of mistakes and will probably make more, but her splintered love life is far richer than the hollowness that comes with Alex's well-informed superficiality.

Jennifer Connelly as Janine, Bradley Cooper as Ben

He's Just Not is a laboratory experiment in human miscommunication, illuminating the dysfunction of a system that is arguably indispensable, but no less broken. Every character has a fundamental inability to express themselves or, in some cases, simply tell the truth. We bring so much pain on ourselves, the film rightly argues, by calling what we do "civility" and "good manners" when it is little more than a smokescreen for our own selfishness and incapacity to be sincere. We hide our disinterest behind false pretense, and misconstrue politeness as affection.

No one in this film wants to be average. Everyone likes to think they are unique, the exception to the rule, when it is far more likely that they are rule personified. This makes them no less special or valuable. It simply illuminates a powerful reality—love is not an effortless and undemanding fairytale. It is laborious, succeeding only because we work on it day in and day out.

For all its refreshing pragmatism, He's Just Not That Into You takes a fairly dim view of marriage. After all, the only married couple spends the film in a progressively implosive state. Another couple contemplating the big step gets hung up on the institution as mere show, the last refuge of the insecure, a social expectation that confuses matrimony for true commitment. Still, the film remains something of a cautionary tale, allowing the audience to feel the illicit thrill of not-so-innocent extramarital flirtations before revealing that, when fully grown, those flirtations wreak havoc on all involved. The film may, at times, think that marriage is overrated, but it also has little patience for those who deliberately back out on their promises, more interested in their own lusts than in the sanctity of their commitments.

Drew Barrymore as Mary, Scarlett Johansson as Anna

Whatever mistakes they make, there are actually no loathsome characters here. We may like some characters more than others, but in the final analysis, each is simply human. We should not view their fallibility as an isolated incident or something that happens to "the other guy," but a mirror that warns: there but for the grace of God go I.

He's Just Not That Into You wimps out a bit in the end. Having made some very good points about the individual belief in exceptionalism and even the rationale behind the institution of marriage, the film caves to stereotypes and offers the very things it spent two hours opposing. It's pleasing to the part of us that loves happy endings but is, alas, not very honest. One wishes the film would stand on principle, or at least offer us some rationale as to why it deviated.

It strikes me that my analysis hardly sounds like that of a romantic comedy—and yet the movie is pervasively funny. But it uses humor as the sugar that helps the very real medicine go down. He's Just Not That Into You stands as an amusing yet potent reminder than when we live for ourselves instead of others, everyone loses.

Talk About It

1. The prevalence of technology, the film purports, which was created to keep us in touch, also makes it easier to drive us apart. Have you discovered this is your own life?
2. How have you affair-proofed your own marriage? How can you recognize if "innocent flirtations" are transitioning into misplaced desire?

1. Have you ever thought you were unique? What does God say about the specialness of the individual?
2. How should the manner in which believers conduct their romantic relationships differ with those portrayed in this film?

The Family Corner

He's Just Not That Into You is rated PG-13 for sexual content and brief strong language. Two characters lay scantly clad in bed and later begin to make love in a very brief but tawdry scene before being interrupted. The language is not omnipresent, but comes in short, jarring bursts.

Photos © Copyright Warner Bros.

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