Interesting provenance for a project: the concept of He's Just Not That Into You came from a line in a 30-minute Sex and the City episode, which was then turned into a thin but nonetheless bestselling self-help book of the same title by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo. So should it be a huge surprise that the resulting movie (directed by Ken Kwapis, screenplay by Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein) isn't exactly Citizen Kane?
From the largely negative reviews and the outraged on-line outcry that's greeted this innocuous, essentially lightweight picture, you'd have thought the romantic comedy Anti-Christ had arrived. Accordingly, I showed up at my local multiplex prepared to see something car wreck-level horrible. Well, there's nothing like having low-to-no expectations. I went, I watched, and I've lived to tell: It's not awful.
However.
HJNTIY belongs to that most difficult to get right of rom-com sub-genres, the ensemble film. These kinds of movies, with Richard Curtis's Love Actually being perhaps the most successful in recent memory, put a number of disparate couples through their romantic comedy paces, and are usually loosely organized around a theme, however substantial or wispy (see Actually's fairly fatuous "love is all around you" motif).
HJNTIY's thematic concerns are so ephemeral as to barely bear examination. There's a stab at organization in there, reminiscent of When Harry Met Sally's imitation of the Woody Allen oeuvre, where the title's self-help theme is sounded in a title card (e.g. "...if he's not calling you,"), followed by a faux "real person" interview on the topic. And certainly the spine of the thing is embodied in the story line featuring Ginnifer Goodwin and Justin Long: Goodwin is the girl who needs to be taught the meaning of the title's lesson.
As to the grab-bag of story lines surrounding hers, the ultimate meaning of it all is pretty damn fuzzy. There's something in here, as the various couples do or don't work through their various romantic issues, about women needing to shed their illusions on the one hand, and stand up for themselves on the other, but it's tough to sort out. That's mainly because despite the many winning actors on display here, there really aren't any characters.
It's like a romantic comedy video game, or more properly, a board game: pick a card from the Conflicts pile, roll the dice, and see where you land. The players themselves are largely incidental. Thus Scarlett Johansson is a confused and confusing construct: she's the girl who's sort of with, but not with Entourage's Kevin Connolly (himself likable but so insubstantial that he threatens to float right off the screen), and intent on sleeping with married man Bradley Cooper. Why? Because the plot demands it; who Johansson is, beyond some loose idea of a narcissicist, is never clear.
The same superficiality afflicts all the couplings on screen, which are lazily sketched in sitcom gloss. Every now and then, sheer sentimentality pulls some emotions to the surface; you'd have to be romantic comedy immune to not feel the tug when Ben Affleck proves he's there for Jennifer Aniston, and Jennifer Connolly brings a welcome edge and heft to her turn as a betrayed wife, given the slimness of the stereotypical role. But speaking of stereotypes...
The aforementioned on-line tumult arose -- rightfully, to a large degree -- from both the black and the gay community's reaction to HJNTIY's offensive tone-deafness. For a movie set in Baltimore, with its prominent black community, it really is absurd that there's no couple of color in the film. Black characters are consistently relegated to background, and the most prominent one, given only a few lines, is a waiter.
The homosexual men depicted in the movie are wince-worthy, cliché gay.
Where is it written that a romantic comedy has to be politically correct? Nowhere, of course, and if one accepts the notion that all the film's central characters travel in roughly the same social circle, one could rationalize the color-blindness of the group (one could, that is, if the insular, upper-class white nature of the HJNTIY cast were at least acknowledged). But it's inarguable that HJNTIY represents a missed opportunity. Imagine if the creative team behind it had tried to stretch the long-established boundaries of the genre, instead of dutifully playing connect-the-formulaic-dots.
Meanwhile, as we carp and bloviate, the evidently critic-proof pic has captured its opening weekend, with a stellar $27.5 mil take. And it was instructive to see the movie with a full house. I realized, gauging the tenor and volume of the laughter, that what's getting HJNTIY over is its pop cultural conviviality. In its best moments, not unlike a good Sex and the City episode (minus the truly sharp wit), the movie is speaking its contemporary urban audience's language.
Thus a largely wasted Drew Barrymore got one of the movie's biggest laughs when her character decried a technology where you have to go through seven different portals to receive the same rejection you used to get from one home answering machine. And the script's grasp of what constitutes today's social faux pas (e.g. Bradley Cooper being the sole person to clap at the end of Scarlett's yoga class is the embarrassing give-away that he is that into her) is just knowing enough to give its audience the grin of recognition.
It's this sense of "we're talking to you," I think, combined with the undeniable star wattage such an ensemble musters, that's making HJNTIY the date movie de jour. The movie is at least hipper than your grandmother's rom-com, as its viral promo that advertises 10 Chick Flick Clichés That Aren't in HJNTIY demonstrates. But will such a trifle of a movie endure? Not highly likely. And much as it's heartening to see any romantic comedy top the box office, the movie's momentary success is giving me that queasy, we-get-the-movies-we-deserve feeling.
If this is the kind of sub-par rom-com that makes a lot of money, what's going to make the studios want to produce a movie that's much better?
I like the comparision of "He's Just Not that Into You" to "Love Actually," on the surface having seen "Love Actually" but not "He's Just Not that Into You" they do look a lot a like on one level: lots of high profile actors.
Unfortunelty a lot of Hollywood movies seam to suffer when they get to many high profile stars. All those stupid "Oceans" movies comes to mind. It's like we got all these actors to commit, we've got to start filming NOW, who cares if the stories missing something. Sheer star power alone will draw.
It's a flawed mentality. I hope you're fighting the good fight, Billy, and chiming in when the story betrays the tallent.
- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA
Posted by: E.C. Henry | February 09, 2009 at 04:08 AM
God I hate this movie. I haven't seen it but I hate it. Just like how I haven't read the book but hate it.
Why?
Because women are not insane. And HJNTITY wants us to desperately believe we are.
We are not crazy. We don't make things up. Men are just as weird. I don't need a lame book written by a slightly-lame comedian telling me I need to be taught "a lesson".
I've had enough of women being stereotyped as stalker-psycho-desperate when it comes to dating, and I can't believe a whole generation of them have decided some DUDE (with weird hair) gets to make the rules when it comes to their relationship life.
...Ugh. Gross. I feel like I need to wash my brain out just thinking all of this...
Posted by: J | February 09, 2009 at 08:27 AM
Wicked assessment...especially pointing out how difficult it is to make a really engaging/moving ensemble romantic comedy.
Posted by: wcdixon | February 09, 2009 at 09:53 AM
Excellent analysis and no I haven't seen it and probably won't. The ensemble comedy is difficult, but not impossible if certain elements are regarded: the devil's advocate, the mentor, the dreamer, the flirt, and maybe the selfish hero.
Of course these elements need to have some substance but hell we're making all of this stuff up anyway so it shouldn't be THAT hard. You can always steal scenes.
P.S.
There are black people in Baltimore? I guess writers are relegating themselves to certain cultural niches and don't have the ability to write "white mainstream" lines for other ethnicities and cultures.
Posted by: Christian H | February 11, 2009 at 10:33 AM
I think what we need to remember here is that moviegoers generally do not head into the theaters looking for a new film to be a classic or a groundbreaker.
They go to be entertained on “some” level that fulfills minimum expectations of the film’s genre. That means an easy to understand plot with a few laughs in a comedy or a rash of explosions and gunfights in an action flick.
Also, if the audience can connect with the film, like on a cultural level as you mentioned in HJNTIY Billy, it can be a hit.
Writers should take note of this. I don’t mean to say we shouldn’t try to write the next “When Harry Met Sally,” or “Pretty Woman.”
What I am saying is maybe it’s not so bad to create a little film that is more mind candy than meaningful. The negative. Moviegoers tend to enjoy lightweight films in small doses. If too many of them hit theaters –they usually decide their time is better spent elsewhere.
That said I’m still working on my very meaningful, got something to say, rom-com.
Posted by: Fronnie Lewis aka F. Leegh Lewis | February 11, 2009 at 10:50 PM
Saw HJNTITY last night in a pretty packed theatre and I have never heard an audience in the UK interact as much with a rom-com. (Compared to the US, watching a movie in the UK can be like a visit to the library i.e. very quiet, with lots of sssh’ing)
The laughs came thick and fast, and there was much gasping and oohs and ahhs in all the right places – the audience seemed to really connect with it in a big way.
Sure, it was trifling nonsense for the most part, BUT if I’d written HJNTITY and sat in that theatre listening to the great reaction it got, I’d be a pretty happy writer.
Posted by: FrankA | February 12, 2009 at 03:38 AM
As a young single gal, in Australia, I saw HJNTITY twice... both times in packed cinemas, and both with extraordinarily big audience interaction. This movie is exactly what the us girls are craving right now. The women in the movie seemed real (not such over-the-top 'characters' that rom coms typically have). We could relate to their situations, and how they reacted. And I'm afraid my gay male friends must be cliched, because that is very much how they behave.
Finally a movie that explored issues that we're all thinking/feeling in modern relationships, with no simple answers, just the complexities, dilemas, ups and downs that happens in real life!
It's my humble opinion, but I hope more movies are made like this. :)
Posted by: Alley K | February 15, 2009 at 05:58 AM
Billy, just got back from watching a double bill of "Confessions of a Shopaholic" and "He's Really Not that Into You." "Confessions of a Shopaholic" was WAY BETTER. Isla Fisher really carries the movie beautifully, and, in my opinion, cements her place in the romantic comedy world and justifies future staring roles.
After watching "He's Really Not that Into You" I was left with the nagging feeling that this movie suffers from an excess of "cold fish" characters. YES, Gennifer Goodwin's character IS the warmth and the character we root for. But what do you make of Ben Afflick, Jennifer Aniston, and Jennifer Connelly? Cold, lifeless fish... though I did warm up to Jennifer Connelly at the end of movie. And if she ever wants a rebound guy, hey sugar lips Prince Charming is waiting for you two states to the north -- and I don't smoke, and I won't kick ya outta bed for eatting crackers!
Ben Afflick's character is an absolute bore. Drew Barrymore's character needs emotional resonance, as opposed to just delivering the best barb lines in the movie. Justin Long's character failed to resonate with me as well. This show SHOULD have been better than it was. Yes, it had an all-star cast, but this STORY would have been better served if some of the all-star rode the pine...
- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA
Posted by: E.C. Henry | February 15, 2009 at 08:08 PM
This is calm and nice romantic comedy that i really loved. Jeniffer was amazing as always. Frankly i watch every movie with her, great actress.
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