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He’s Just Not That Into You

I was at work on Sunday and my friend was nice enough to leave his laptop behind for us to watch movies. When I showed up they were watching David Fincher's The Game, starring Michael Douglas. I watched the last bit of it and thought it was a very interesting film, maybe one day I'll watch the whole thing, but I more or less figured out the whole film from the ending.

Once the movie was finished and my friend left, my other friend from work asked me what movie I wanted to watch next. Looking through the list, there were quite a few things I had my eye on (particularly Dead Presidents which I've always wanted to watch but never got around to), but she suggested that we watch He's Just Not That Into You instead. Needless to say, I was reluctant, but I watched it anyway, or at least, attempted to.

From what I could gather, it's about the situations that people get into because their friends sugarcoat the truth for them. The thing the character kept repeating was "we're not the exception, we're the rule," which basically meant that for every situation that has a predictable ending, people tend to write themselves in as the exception because they're in denial. I don't want to get all uber-Liberal, but there are moments in the film where it seemed that the women were just screwing things up by making it more complex than it is, while the guys rub their temples in vain wondering just why the hell is this all happening. Men are extremely simple people, they have no clue how to communicate with women because women apparently don't understand simplicity.

Which is what I understood the film to be saying.

The Jennifer Aniston segment is about her and her longtime boyfriend that won't marry her. He insists marriage is just a show and that he really loves her anyway. She talks to her friends and they put this idea in his head that this guy should really get married with her because he's not serious until he does. She breaks up with him, goes to live with her family for a bit, realizes that all the married men are slobs and not as great as her boyfriend and finally gets back with him.

I love how she completely wastes all this time and at the end of it the boyfriend is completely ok with it.

Then there's this other scene, where a girl is talking to Justin Long about a guy that she went on a date with. She asks him what's up with the guy, how come he didn't call, is something wrong? Maybe something happened, you know, all that denial bullshit because clearly, there is nothing wrong with this girl. Anyway, Justin just rolls his eyes and gives the simple answer:

"You know, if a guy wanted to go out with you, he'd just call."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"What if-"
"-He'll call if he wants to. If not then he doesn't."

And that's that! Men call, women wait. That's the drill, and this girl willingly accepts this. She seems fairly accepting of the fact that she has no say in the matter, and it's not until she has a talk with another girl at work that she realizes that hey, she can call back too! Like, wow, what else are the numbers on the phone for? Do they make two phones? One for men with numbers and one for women with just the receiver? No! Fuck, she's retarded. How does something so simple get so complicated?

Then we have Scarlett Johansson and Bradley Cooper's storyline. Cooper's character is married. That's it! That's how it ends, right? Nope! Of course Scarlett's character believes that she's a better fit, and of course she pursues him, and of course he cheats on his wife. Why not? Scarlett freakin' Johansson is coming onto you! Her friend told her that she knew someone who was married for over 10 years before meeting a woman who turned out to be his soul mate and he divorced his first wife and married his second for the next 20. Scarlett's character believes this is an ok situation and proceeds to wreck the new marriage in hopes of finding love. Yes, love is when you strip naked in front of a married man and swim in front of him, right? No, that is how you become a whore, not a wife. But of course, she stupidly believes her friend and complicates a situation for no reason, but the movie absolves Scarlett of any wrong doing by showing that the marriage was already shaky before she got there.

Anyway, this movie I endured for as much as I could before I just walked out of the room and called my friend up. When I got back, the movie was still playing. Apparently it's more than two hours long! Who does that? How do you stretch material so thin for so long? Now that, takes talent. Unfortunately, it is the only talent found and applied in this film.

Side Note: The movie also takes place in Baltimore, which, after The Wire, just looks completely different in this movie. It's much to clean cut and Hollywoodized, but then again, I can't picture these actors/actresses anywhere near a corner.