He’s Just Not That Into You (**½)

Directed by: Ken Kwapis
Starring: Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, Ben Affleck, Ginnifer Goodwin, Jennifer Connelly, Scarlet Johansson, Justin Long, Bradley Cooper, Kevin Connolly, Kris Kristofferson
Seen: February 18th 2009

**½ Out of ****

He’s Just Not That Into You is a bad movie that I liked quite a bit. The story is basically a mess of people running around trying to improve their romantic lives. What do we expect from others in the dating game? How will we ever find that special someone with so much complexity to it all?

Beth (Aniston) and Neil (Affleck) live together, and Neil absolutely doesn’t believe in marriage while Beth wants it. Gigi (Goodwin) is strung up on Connor (Kevin Connolly) who is strung up on Anna (Johansson) who really likes Ben (Cooper) who is married to Janine (Jennifer Connolly) who works with Beth and Gigi. Mary (Barrymore) works at Blade Magazine with a lot of gay men who support her when she gets rejected, in her words, on seven different technologies. Anna is a singer who meets Ben, who has connections in the recording industry, in a supermarket and they share an immediate chemistry. Ben and Janine have a stagnant marriage, much like their home, which is still under construction. And when Gigi goes to the local bar in the hopes of running into Connor, Alex (Long) gives her all the advice about relationships she can handle, she even starts calling him on dates to determine from her date’s actions whether she should stay or go, whether he is really into her, or already planning an exit strategy.

And so things go on, without much real structure, and relationships either start out or fall apart. Beth breaks up with Neil because he does not want to marry her even though she is all he ever wants. Gigi starts getting over Connor as she spends more time with Alex and his advice and a succession of non-descript dates. Anna and Ben get progressively closer and this brings about some tension between Ben and Janine. Gigi meets more possible lovers… and on and on and on. Each of us will recognise some aspect of our own love lives in this film, some comic, some tragic, some romantic, some lustful, some just passive…

The film runs amok much the same way romance does in our lives and at the end not everything is closed of with a smile and a ray of sunshine. Some stories end bad, some very sweetly, some just dissolve, and this is the way life goes, love can be cruel, but it only hurts so bad because we either know or suspect how good it can be if it’s right. Do check out for the very subtle moral lesson in what happens to some characters at the conclusion, it is spot on (I believe).