The Hard Truth is That He’s Just Not That Into You

By Vida Vongvanith
Staff Writer

He’s Just Not That Into You is based on the best-selling book of the same name written by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, former writers of the hit HBO series, Sex and the City. And so, with this connection, apparently comes many expectations. Having never watched a single full episode of the series in question, I had absolutely no expectations going in, and sometimes that’s the best way to watch a movie.

The film boasts an A-list cast including Jennifer Anniston, Drew Barrymore, Ben Affleck, Scarlett Johansson and Jennifer Connelly and was directed by Ken Kwapis (NBC’s The Office and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants). Despite the star-studded lineup, the best performance was probably by Ginnifer Goodwin who portrays Gigi, a woman so embarrassingly clueless about how the mating game is played that it ends up making her the most charming character. The story revolves around five women in their twenties and thirties searching for a relationship that works. They fall into all the pitfalls of love, marriage and dating by doing all the wrong things and metaphorically shooting themselves in the foot.

He’s Just Not That Into You is a romantic comedy that tries to do what all romantic comedies try to do – appeal to both men and women. And it pretty much succeeds because, let’s face it, although no man will ever willingly ask to go see this or any other movie in the genre, at least he’ll get more than a couple of laughs when his girlfriend inevitably drags him to it. Its appeal for women is that it pokes fun at all the things we know we do wrong and these situations are always funny when you’re not actually living it. Its appeal for men is that it pokes fun at all the things men know we do wrong (and gives them free reign to laugh at us to our face…or at least our side profile). So it ends up a laugh-laugh situation.

The film is evenly-paced and never stalls on one subplot but overall is a bit longer than it really needs to be. With no expectations, you might be surprised to find that the film is actually enjoyable and, if nothing else, the people are pretty to look at.