He’s Just Not That Into You (Movie Review)

With an ensemble cast featuring the who’s who of the romantic comedy genre and the Sex and the City writers behind it, He’s Just Not That Into You positions itself as this year’s go-to Valentine’s Day movie. While the film is predictably formulaic, to its credit, it manages to keep the mawkish sentimentality to a minimum.

Based on the book by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, the film follows a group of interconnected, Baltimore-based twenty- and thirty-somethings as they navigate their relationships—from shallow dating to the murky waters of marriage—trying to read the signs of the opposite sex and hoping to live out their fairy tale love stories.

Much like Sex and the City, the film romanticizes the lives of young, white urban professionals, lives that have become cliched and generic. It seems as though everyone in the film is financially well-off, living in a fabulous duplex in the latest gentrifying neighborhood. Sadly, when the film does allude to the rest of the world, it does so by staging Latinos and African Americans in offensively stereotypical roles.

The only authentic touch the filmmakers inject into the story is the decision to set it in Baltimore, a city that makes a case for future productions to consider its Domino Sugar backdrop.

The actors are likable (and incredibly good-looking) and pros at delivering one-liners you wouldn’t expect to find funny. The great thing about movies with parallel stories, like this one, is that they give you several characters and situations to “fall in love with,” making it harder to leave the theater disappointed. It’s a formula that worked well with Sex and the City. Now, if only they could add a little color…