Reviewed by maroon5gurl88 on Sat February 14, 2009

The Story: A group of friends in various relationship phases are faced with the cold, hard facts of learning someone is “just not that into you.” There’s Beth (Jennifer Aniston) and Neal (Ben Affleck), a couple arguing over marriage after dating for seven years. Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin) is a serial dater who comes on too strong with men until she meets Alex (Justin Long), a womanizer who teaches her the finer points of dating. Married man Ben (Bradley Cooper) is faced with the dilemma of cheating on his neurotic wife Janine (Jennifer Connelly) with the sexy Anna (Scarlett Johansson). Finally there’s Conner (Kevin Connelly) who is stuck in the friend zone with Anna and starts a friendship with his ad agent Mary (Drew Barrymore).

Pros: I really didn’t want to like He’s Just Not That Into You, since I’m not a fan of the overly sappy romantic comedy. Surprisingly this film doesn’t pander to the many rom-com clichés that turn people (mostly men) off. I went to see this with my guy friend and he didn’t totally hate it. The movie has genuine laughs, mostly the vignettes they cut to of normal people saying what various relationship signals mean. One with Cristine Rose of Heroes was particularly funny for me, since she’s so evil on Heroes. The stories themselves have their highs and lows. Beth and Neal, Ben/Janine/Anna and Alex and Gigi are the strongest and most enjoyable storylines. This is not only attributed to the strong actors, but that the relationships feel lived in and real. While there is a tendency to delve into cliché and emotional overload, I never felt like these weren’t based on some semblance of reality. The original novel is a how-to and the way the characters and relationships are shown in the movie feels very organic and right. I really enjoyed spending time with the characters and thought the movie did well at being a character driven movie.

Cons: The major issue with the movie is its length. At two hours and nine minutes this movie starts to feel long right around the hour mark. A lot of this is how the storylines are cut up. Mostly focusing on the main relationship I mentioned above, the weakest stories involve Conner and Mary. It almost comes to the point where they could have sacrificed these characters stories to save on time, mainly because they overly extend the film. The movie does also have a tendency to become melodramatic with the characters have big verbal meltdowns or moments of heavy overacting. It comes with this type of genre and the moments are few and far between but they’re there. It was also difficult to watch how they handled the cheating spouse aspect. Barrymore’s character tells Anna about a man who left his wife of fifteen years for his mistress and how Anna should go for the married Ben and maybe he’ll leave his wife too. It seemed a bit too insensitive and it’s easy to see why they don’t give Ben and Janine children as it would have been way too over the line. As it is Ben comes off as a jerk irregardless but it seemed a bit odd that the characters would be advising on infidelity.

Acting: The ensemble cast is what elevates He’s Just Not That Into You beyond a standard rom-com. Jennifer Aniston and Ben Affleck have some adorable moments and some great chemistry. Aniston isn’t stretching any boundaries but she’s likeable. The same goes for Affleck who isn’t on-screen too much but when he is he’s charming as hell. Ginnifer Goodwin is so sweet as Gigi and it’s hilarious to see her throw herself at men, truly embarrassing moments happen at her expense. Justin Long turns in a surprising turn as the ladies man Alex. Some critics don’t believe him as a Lothario but I think he toes the line between nice guy and player well in this. Scarlett Johansson has the sexy mistress character down pat and her role isn’t so different from her character in Match Point. Jennifer Connelly also doesn’t move beyond her firmly established neurotic wife role, and her skinny frame is incredibly distracting in this film. Bradley Cooper isn’t a total jerk, as seen in Wedding Crashers, but he isn’t particularly likeable as the cheating Ben. Kevin Connelly is okay as Connor but he just seems to be replaying Eric o Entourage, the same goes for Barrymore as the nice earthy Mary. No big stretches in acting from any of the cast but the interactions are all strong.

Overall: Women and fans of the genre will love He’s Just Not That Into You. If you don’t fall into either of those categories you will hate it but if you like these types of movies every now and then and you have a few extra dollars give it a shot. The dynamics in the cast are enjoyable and it does have some great humor and life lessons, I was surprised. I give it a 3.5/5.