Rating
2.5

He’s Just Not That Into You is the story of men who are assholes and the women who buy into their nonsense. Interestingly, there are no bitchy women, and there aren’t any men who are especially wonderful. Director Ken Kwapis and writers Abby Kohn and Mark Silverstein probably think they are doing something new or inventive with the chick flick here, but I don’t really think they are. The film is mostly insulting its target audience for two-plus hours, wrapping it all up in a bow at the end to make it seem as if this was just another episode of Sex and the City.

Image courtesy of collider.com

The film is sort of narrated by Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin), who is way into the boring real estate salesman Conor (Kevin Connolly). Gigi is desperate enough to pine over this schmuck, but is knocked out of her stupor by Conor’s buddy Alex (Justin Long), who gives Gigi patronizing relationship advice while she continually searches for “the one.” Good thing too, as Conor is just not that into Gigi, because he is way more into smokin’ hot yoga teacher Anna (Scarlett Johansson). But oh snap! Anna is just not that into Conor, and she just found true love in the form of Ben (Bradley Cooper), who is in a loveless marriage with Janine (Jennifer Connelly). Then there is Beth (Jennifer Aniston), who has been with Neil (Ben Affleck) for seven years and is still waiting for a proposal that isn’t coming any time soon. Also in the mix somewhere is Mary (Drew Barrymore), who has become overwhelmed by technology’s influence on the dating world. 

The sheer amount of storylines here is overwhelming, mainly because director Kwapis spends too much time on too many characters to establish a cohesive narrative. And while the varying storylines here come in abundance, each of these scenarios will play out exactly how you think they will.

I am not just lumping He’s Just Not That Into You into the chick flick category because of its content. I define the “chick flick” as those films in which the intended audience collectively goes “awwwwwww” at those heart-wrenching moments. This event happened a minimum of three times in He’s Just Not That Into You. The flick was designed for the ladies, with enough good jokes in there to keep the boys interested.

But I will be damned if this isn’t the most cynical chick flick I’ve ever seen. It is filled with platitudes like “you aren’t the exception, you’re the rule” and “no man wants to get married.” The movie seems to generally want to crush all women until it turns coat during the trite, bubblegum ending, and is becomes intent on lumping people into the most stereotypical and definable boxes in the world. He’s Just Not That Into You is nearly as insulting and vacuous as Sex and the City, which makes sense because the film is based on a book written by two of the show’s writers.

All of that said, He’s Just Not That Into You can be very funny on occasion, but has the unfortunate disposition of unoriginality and disorganization mucking up the whole experience. The other problem is far too many of the stories having a happy ending. This may just be the nature of the chick flick, but when a movie is this degrading to both sexes, the happy endings can’t help but ring especially false.