Momma always told me my sinful ways would catch up with me one day.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is that day. Because this is the day I subject myself to the massive cloud of vapid misery known as He’s Just Not That Into You.
This movie really doesn’t have a plot, at least not a plot that I can tell. In fact, it’s almost like it’s speaking some other language that I only understand one word in three of. It’s all about relationships, essentially. Relationships, and the various “rules” that are attached to them that are apparently only attached by the most tenuous of threads. And these threads only occasionally exist.
Seriously—a conversation between three girlfriends will suddenly escalate into them going home and breaking up with their boyfriends for little or no clear reason. I’m watching this, and all I see is a bunch of vapid, empty-headed twenty- and thirty-somethings who are trying desperately to get their lives together but seem to be inured to some kind of metaphysical sludge that forbids them from making honest connections with other people.
I will admit that, for the most part, I wound up agreeing with virtually everything the guys said about themselves and the way they operate. Your phone number is our top prize. We’ll settle for an email address. The only thing we’re concerned about is contacting you too soon and looking desperate. We don’t care about giving you our number because we’ll screen your call.
And while this actually represents a pretty solid primer about the interactions of men and women, the biggest question is, how does this work as a movie? The biggest question is also the biggest problem, because frankly, it doesn’t. It’s a complete failure as a movie. There’s no narrative, there’s no real conflict or rising action–it’s basically just a series of short films about an assortment of vacuous halfwits and their relationships to each other. I couldn’t care less about any of these people, and after spending TWO SOLID HOURS with them, I barely know then, almost don’t want to know them. They’re all empty suits, null ciphers, preprogrammed automatons that have all the emotional connectivity of rocks. I found myself caring more about characters that had maybe five, ten lines than any of the mains.
Maybe this just isn’t my cup of tea, but I’ve seen romantic comedies before that had actual storylines. And they’re vastly better than this drivel.
It’s hard to determine a recommendation on this one…it’s hard to watch. It’s downright PAINFUL to watch, frankly. It’s boring and it’s poorly realized. The characters are empty suits and there’s nothing even resembling a reason to care about any of them. There are nearly no laughs, almost no thrills, nothing. But what there is, is a lot of information. I can see the appeal here for some folks, indeed, for a lot of folks.
If you’re deeply, DEEPLY, into drama and romantic comedy, then you’ll definitely be into He’s Just Not That Into You. But if you don’t fit into one of those slots, well, then you’re not that into this. You may actually want to consider giving it one rental anyway just for the sake of the information involved. As a movie, this is a wreck. As a library, this may be helpful.
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