He's Just Not That Into You

The whole thing started with a six-word phrase uttered on an episode of that chicky show, Sex and The City, which turned into a bestselling self-help book which in turn became a movie starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Aniston. Don't you just love Hollywood?

"He's just not that into you" cut through all the perceived crappiness of dating, the messiness, the mixed signals, the overanalyzing, the nonsensical rules we try to follow.

The complicated became simple. If you're a woman and a man doesn't call you after the first date, guess what, he's just not that interested in you, as Alex (Justin Long), a bar manager, tells hapless unlucky-in-love Gigi (Gennifer Goodwin) after his best friend, Conor, fails to call her after a first date.

Oh, how I wish the movie were so simple. But it's not. The film gives us a grand cast of characters in various stages of relationships. We have the aforementioned Gigi, who had a disastrous date with Conor, a real-estate developer who is hopelessly in love with Anna. Anna is having an affair with Ben, who is married to Janine, who happens to be friends with Gigi and Beth. And Beth desperately wants her long-time boyfriend, Neil, to marry her, which is tough because Neil doesn't believe in marriage. And oh, there's Mary, played by Drew Barrymore, who's being rejected by seven different kinds of technologies.

Got all that?

Despite all the scattered-yet-linked storylines, the movie actually works for quite a while before it all collapses into romantic-comedy cliches.

The director Ken Kwapis manages to create nice moments and the dialogue is pretty witty. Jennifer Connelly, who plays Janine, brings some depth to her character, and the whole storyline with Beth and Neil works mainly because of the chemistry between Jennifer Aniston and Ben Affleck, though it ends way too neatly and, at least for me, is a cop-out to appease some women who believe marriage-averse boyfriends will eventually cave in and pop the question if they really really are into you. Wouldn't it be nice if a movie like this didn't take the easy way out?

Justin Long brings an incredible amount of charm to Alex as he dishes out harsh dating advice to heartbroken Gigi who is oblivious to what she is doing wrong. Gennifer Goodwin gives her Gigi so cute and adorable and human even as we cringe at every embarrassing act of desperation perpetually single Gigi performs in her pursuit of love.

But we forgive her because we all know what it is like to like someone and hope beyond hope that he or she likes us back.

Too bad the movie soon runs out of ideas near the end, the edginess fading into predictability and dullness. We know how this movie is going to end. Unfortunately, it takes about 15 to 20 more minutes of tidying up loose ends before we get to it.

Just goes to show that as simple and as wonderful a phrase "He's Just Not That Into You" may be, it might not make a movie that we might be into.