Movie Log: He's Just Not That Into You

I told The Wife that I'd be perfectly happy to watch He's Just Not That Into You with her on Saturday night -- as long as the sometimes-buggy wireless Internet was working, so I could do it with my laptop at hand and the movie with only about half of my attention. It was, so I did.

I've seen this movie described as a somewhat dumbed-down American version of Love, Actually (one of our favorite movies), and that's vaguely true -- it's a collection of loosely-linked plotlines, all basically in the romantic-comedy genre.

As with Love, Actually, having a whole bunch -- four or five, depending on how you count -- of romantic plots means that He's Just Not That Into You doesn't need to spin out stupid complications and silliness from any one of them; it can jump back and forth, and just give us good scenes from each plot. (Of course, any movie can just give us the good, important scenes, but it's never actually that easy.)

There's also a Greek-chorus effect several times, particularly early on in the movie, as unnamed other women -- this is a movie aimed squarely at women, in case you didn't notice that -- comment on men, their own love lives, and similar topics. It's a nice effect, and makes He's Just Not That Into You somewhat more interesting and sprightly than it would otherwise be.

This is not a great movie, but it's a decent one; it has a solid cast of nice-looking people who can act and mostly do. I won't run through all of the separate plots, since they're all fairly standard, even if they don't all end happily, which is rare for Hollywood. This is an excellent movie for a bunch of women to see together -- one might even say it was designed for that, which it probably was -- but men of even average tolerance for chick flicks will make it to the end without cringing much and probably even with some enjoyment. (And not just of Scarlett Johansson's naked swimming scene.)



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Listening to: State Shirt - Hospital Hill
via FoxyTunes