He's Just Not
That Into You

He’s Just Not That Into You is a crowded ensemble comedy with some big names, some great performances, some stories you don’t care about, and some dialogue that will have you laughing so hard you will drop your Milk Duds.

Instead of being one movie with one star and focusing the audience on one main plot, He’s Just Not That Into You is a compilation of stories about couples in different stages of love. Gigi (Ginnifer “The Future Mrs. William Waffle” Goodwin) is the lovelorn gal who can’t figure out why Conor (Kevin Connolly) won’t call her back. Conor longs for his on-again off-again girlfriend Anna (Scarlett Johansson). Anna has fallen for Ben (Bradley Cooper), who is married to Janine (Jennifer Connelly), whose pal, Beth (Jennifer Aniston) is tired of waiting for her longtime boyfriend, Neil (Ben Affleck), to ask her to marry him. And, somewhere in the middle of all of this, for reasons unknown, Drew Barrymore shows up as advertising saleswoman Mary.

Who will find true love?

Who will find out he, or she, is just not that into them?

While you have some huge stars like Barrymore, Johansson and Aniston, it is Goodwin who steals the show. She is the cute, lovelorn, excitable, hopeful, neurotic lady who attempts to find a clue in every statement and always tries to convince herself it will all work out in the end. In other words, she is the person all of us have been when we hope we have found someone special, and then drive ourselves crazy as we try to navigate the troubled waters of romance.

She is the one we root for, because we see something of ourselves in her struggles, and admire the never say die attitude. Goodwin has a lovable screen persona that makes you embrace her despite her character’s minor flaws. She’s never annoying or does anything so stupid you realize why she is failing in this story. If only all of the stories and performances in He’s Just Not That Into You were just as great.

Director Ken Kwapis and the writing team of Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein try to accomplish too much. Sure, you can understand how they are trying to fit every stage of love into one movie. We have the singles trying to become a new couple, the couple where love has waned, the couple on the verge of marriage and the marriage that is starting to fail.

However, this forces the audience to focus on less interesting stories at the expense of the good ones, and compels the creative team to push some stories so far in the background you wonder why they are even included.

Barrymore barely is in the movie, and her plight is relegated to a mere 3 or 4 scenes that add nothing to He’s Just Not That Into You. Connelly and Aniston have to carry more melodramatic storylines that feel like big bummers in the face of the cuter and funnier material. I am even willing to go so far as to say that the little interludes and staged “man-on-the-street” interviews that break up the different portions of He’s Just Not That Into You are better than any material given to Aniston, Barrymore and Connelly.

Ultimately, He’s Just Not That Into You succeeds due to funny situations, and dialogue that rings true, even when it hits a little too close to the pain you have buried down deep inside. Each story could have wrapped up one scene earlier, but I have a feeling many will appreciate the more obvious endings to each, instead of the lingering and mysterious endings I think could have been used.

He's Just Not That Into You is rated PG-13 for sexual content and brief strong language .