Not quite the exception

He’s Just Not That Into You
Review by Nathan Weinbender

“He’s Just Not That Into You” was based on a popular dating advice book, and it shows. The script shoehorns so much self-help dialogue into the script that the characters never become believable human beings and, most problematically, we never come to care about their romantic woes.

They only seem to care about are their love lives (their jobs and families are never brought up in conversation), and they exist either as helpful sources of exposition and information, as exemplars of the film’s various relationship mores or as broad personifications of the rigid gender roles in upper-middle class America.

I just realize I’ve made the movie sound more thoughtful than it is. Let me simplify it: All of the women in the film are desperate for commitment, and all of the men in are afraid of it, and the screenplay presents us with an interconnected series of characters who are always second-guessing their position in life and their selection of significant others.

Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Connelly and Ginnifer Goodwin all work in the same office, yet they can’t possibly be efficient employees, since they just sit around discussing their relationships all day. Aniston is living with Ben Affleck, but he won’t marry her; Connelly is married to Bradley Cooper, but he isn’t keen on having children.

Goodwin plays Gigi, the single girl, and she and her co-workers (the movie doesn’t bother specifying what exactly they do) exhaustively dissect the details of her dates. Did he give you his number before you gave him yours? When he said “Nice to meet you,” was it at the beginning of the date or the end of it? How long has it been since your date, and has he called you yet?

Gigi has “needy” written all over her, and she spends most of the film staring helplessly at the phone, waiting for it to ring. She turns to a savvy bartender played by Justin Long, who has obviously read “He’s Just Not That Into You” and knows all the rules of courtship. If a guy wants to date you, he says, he’ll make it happen. If you sense that he’s not into you, move on.

There’s also Scarlett Johansson as a wannabe chanteuse who begins an affair with Cooper, Kevin Connolly as a real estate agent confused by the Johansson character’s advances and Drew Barrymore as a harried ad executive who pines for the days when our lives weren’t dictated by endless means of communication.

The all-star cast is appealing, made up of actors I admire, but the story revolves around so many of them that they hardly have a chance to develop their characters beyond mere summations of their romantic shortcomings.

“He’s Just Not That Into You” clearly has loftier ambitions than most romantic comedies, but it plays like a faint echo of a Woody Allen picture: Its use of intertwining relationships, pedantic banter, chapter titles and monologues delivered directly to the camera remind us of Allen’s wonderful “Hannah and Her Sisters,” but executed with far less wit, warmth and intelligence.

As cute and inoffensive as this film is, it never produces a moment of genuine inspiration or truly remarkable insight. Since we’re already comparing it to Woody Allen, let us also observe that “He’s Just Not That Into You” is also lacking Allen’s touch for cutting dialogue. Remember Allen’s character in “Manhattan,” whose wife left him for another woman? “I thought I took it rather well under the circumstances,” he says indifferently. “I tried to run them both over with a car.”

What’s the most memorable piece of dialogue I culled from this film? “You have an ass so hot it makes me wanna dry hump.” I’m not too into that.

Grade: C+

Directed by Ken Kwapis. Written by Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein. Based on the book by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo. Starring Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Connelly, Scarlett Johnasson, Ginnifer Goodwin, Justin Long, Bradley Cooper, Kevin Connolly and Drew Barrymore. PG-13; 129m.