A Review of “He’s Just Not That Into You”

Ok, so I haven’t read the book. I’m only judging the movie… currently. I may read the book because while I liked the movie as being your typical “chick-flick-feel-good-everything-turns-out-great-in-the-end” kind of movie, I take issue with the entire concept of a book and/or movie that feels the need to tell women “he’s just not that into you”. That being said I do love your typical chick flick so needless to say I did enjoy the film even though I do have some critiques of the premise. Warning: there are spoilers ahead – not big ones but if you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want to know anything about it, don’t read this post.

For one, I’d like to believe that we are not that stupid. It’s not like women truly don’t know when a man “is just not into” them. Sometimes people choose to believe things that are irrational. And let’s face it women aren’t the only ones. Walking out of that film my friend and I were thinking the exact same thing: why isn’t there a book/movie called “she’s just not that into you”? Honestly to be so presumptuous as to think that the female population actually needs a book called “he’s just not that into you” really bothers me. Personally, I’d like to give us a bit more credit because the female population of the world is honestly not that stupid. In fact, I’d say we are better at reading cues than our male counterparts.

Now one of the issues I had with the movie was that what it seems the premise would be is that we are not the exception but rather the rule. So if a man isn’t calling you back or whatever that he’s just not that into you. Granted I think that’s just common sense but that’s neither here nor there. But what I found to baffling is that everyone found some sort of happy ending. And really, most of the women ended up being the exception and not the rule, which I thought was rather sad if this movie was supposed to be “different”. Or perhaps, I just need to lower my expectations.

I have to say one of my favourite parts of the movie was when Drew Barrymore goes off on a rant about how dating these days is just so confusing because there’s myspace, email, twitter, texting, your work phone, your cell phone and your home phone, if you still have one of those. Technology really has made dating a completely different game and she did leave off my most favourite form of confusion which would be facebook. I find that technology can just make dating far more difficult than it really needs to be. I also find that being able to “stalk” your crush online to be a bit tricky to handle because I mean what is the dating etiquette of when to contact the person you’re interested and how or why.

On a completely unrelated sidenote, I just realized that Holi (the Hindu festival of colors) was on my birthday this year and I totally missed it. What a bummer. That would’ve been the best way to celebrate my birthday ever. (Not that my birthday wasn’t great, it was the best one in my recollection so far).

2 thoughts on “A Review of “He’s Just Not That Into You”

  1. I felt kind of the same way about HJNTIY…But while reading your little rant about the exception or being the rule it finally hit me. Perhaps they were just saying you’re going to be the rule into you find the guy (or gal) who finds you exceptional. Which just reinforces all the romantic lovey-doviness of a chick flick.

    I was disappointed that Ben Affleck proposed to Jen in the end…I thought their relationship was the only really kind of believable one until that point…Although I am a bit smitten with Justin Long…

  2. Maybe that is what they were trying to say, but I don’t know if I believe it. Not to say that I’m not a fan of the romantic lovey-doviness of chick flicks, I just think if you’re actually going to try to oppose the idea then you should be a little realistic, ya know?

    You know, I was a little disappointed with Ben Affleck and Jennifer Aniston’s happy ending but at the same time, I’ve actually seen couples do that. So I guess that made it seem a little less unrealistic to me. Not gonna lie Justin Long was hilarious, I did like his character.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *