In Annie Hall, Woody Allen stops a couple on the street and asks them how it is they seem so happy together. "I'm very shallow and empty, and I have no ideas and nothing interesting to say," the woman responds. "And I'm exactly the same way," her boyfriend adds.
If you multiply this couple by four and give them 100 minutes together, you have He's Just Not That Into You.
In a good romantic comedy, the characters or the situation have something that adds to the romance, a gimmick that makes the story charming for another reason than simply because people are in love: They own bookstores, are from different social groups or they're creatively eccentric.
The gimmick behind He's Just Not That Into You is the idea that women will have to learn that they can't win a guy by sheer force of neurosis if they eventually want to be happy. The only problem is that at least two of the women in this movie succeed in just that fashion, robbing the story of the idea that supposedly made it special and interesting.
Without that driving force that would set this story apart from the others, He's Just Not That Into You quickly breaks down into a movie about dating.
It is not about unique people interacting in unique ways but the bare mechanics of meeting singles and pairing with them. The movie tries to mimic the structure of Love Actually, following a loosely interconnected group of friends and colleagues as their stories evolve independently.
But in Love Actually, each story has a little twist that makes it exciting: Two people fall in love at work, but one of them is the Prime Minister; a shy couple begins their relationship, but they meet as stand-ins for movie sex scenes. He's Just Not That Into You features nondescript people in nondescript jobs on the verge of nondescript relationship developments.
Part of the problem is that He's Just Not That Into You is loosely based on a self-help book. The popular guide by Greg Behrendt, former Sex and the City story editor, is an expansion of a piece of advice dropped by a character in the show: If a guy doesn't call, it isn't because he doesn't want to sleep with you or marry you, he's just not that into you, and you should move on.
There is a wealth of story possibilities in the blunders the book warns against, but if any character actually follows through on this advice toward a stable, drama-free relationship based on mutual interest, there would be no story at all.
As such, the movie can only achieve an interesting story if it contradicts the premise upon which it's based. And by trying to dance back to that premise, it spools away time on bland emotional tapdancing instead of developing real tension.
The movie covers a lot of topical ground in the world of modern dating: technology, confusing friends-with-benefits situations and gay culture. But as in most romantic comedies, the gay characters are just props to support the straight women; they aren't privileged with emotional development or relationships of their own.
Drew Barrymore's character goes through the wringer of every possible type of rejection: texting, voice mail, MySpace and e-mail. But aside from the outburst that fits so well into the movie's commercials, her adventures don't reveal or entertain the way the post-it note breakup in Sex and the City did.
Barrymore's character exists purely to illustrate this world of dating. There's no other engine for humor or drama within her personality. There's nothing to laugh at beside the fact that she dated one guy for a week via text, but even that stops being funny after a while.
Overall, He's Just Not That Into You doesn't plunge further down than most conveyor-belt romantic comedies. But with the talent involved in the cast and the writing and the potential to stand out as something slightly more cynical or "real," it's an extra dose of disappointment.
On the flip side, these women will make Carrie Bradshaw look like a grounded individual, which is something to consider the next time you sit down to Sex and the City.
