A Review of "He's Just Not That Into You" starring the Namby Pamby and the Alleged Lady.

Today was a normal day of drudgery at the firm. I was knee deep in deposition statements trying to put together a carefully annotated statement of facts for a summary judgment answer. I was also fact and cite checking another brief for a patent interference (where 2 inventors claim that they have invented the same invention, to be decided by the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences at the USPTO). It was NOT looking like a sunny, funny day. And then...an e-mail from the Alleged Lady popped up asking us bloggers if anyone wanted to go to an evening showing of the chick flick du jour, "He's Just Not That Into You." Now, I was familiar with the source material of the film. I remember the episode of Sex and the City when Berger (Ron Livingston) enlightened the ladies as to how they needed to stop reading into guys reactions, responses and words in an effort to explain away boorish behavior. If memory serves, Miranda was the one who was trying to justify why a guy had not called her back, and while her friends were trying to make her feel better about herself, Berger broke in with "maybe he's just not that into you." It was as if a light bulb went off. Of course, later in the run, Berger became infamous as the man who broke up with Carrie via post it note (a precursor to today's text message and Facebook break ups), but still, women everywhere talked about that episode. The book provided a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of the boorish behavior that men resorted to in order to not call women or to break up with women they were not that into. I remember being bemused by the book, as I could recognize certain proclivities that I might have had as a teenager, maybe, but SURELY today's women could NOT be so naive as to fall for these tricks from all loser men out there. Surely guys were more mature than THIS when they dealt with the opposite sex.

Talk about naive. That would be me.

The more I spoke with my female friends (I have a lot of them), the more I realized that both sexes bore some of the blame. Women want to see the best in the worst of male specimens while ignoring lesser (but better) specimens around them. In contrast, too many men saw women as disposable playthings and tended to realize, too late, that they might have had something real. Ick. These boors were messing with women's minds to the point where women reacted with doubt whenever they were face to face with a good guy. Demystifying the guy mystique for women (here's the secret-there IS no guy mystique-we are pretty simple creatures, actually) would do a world of good.

So here it was, a long Tuesday at work, when the Alleged Lady laid out plans for an evening viewing of the film. Closet (or not so closet) chick flick fan the Namby Pamby and I were the only ones who chose to accompany the Lady (Alleged, that is). We decided to meet for a 7:15 show in downtown Chicago. Upon arriving at the theater (I was the first one), I noticed that there were a LOT of women at the theater...I mean, a LOT. Not only were the numbers startling-I also noticed that most of them were outfitted in couture (yes, I know what that is). It was then that I noticed that there was a special advanced screening of "Confessions of a Shopoholic" in the same theater complex as "He's Just Not That Into You." The estrogen levels at this complex were noticeably high. Namby soon arrived, and we marveled at the waves of impeccably dressed females marching up the escalators. It was actually kind of surreal. Finally, Alleged Lady (sans couture) arrived, and the three of us proceeded upstairs to purchase our tickets and watch the film. Having arrived at the actual theater a little late, we were forced to sit about 4 rows from the screen (something that would prove amusing later on). We settled in with some popcorn and sodas (sorry, Alleged Lady, with popcorn and COKES) and sat back to watch the film.

Without going into spoilers, the film played as a more modern version (from the female perspective) of the 1960s era sex comedy "A Guide for the Married Man". Different stories were interwoven that followed a group of acquaintances in Baltimore (with some fun "I used to live there!" flashbacks for me, a Maryland PhD). You had the woman who desperately wanted to be in a relationship but was bad about figuring it out, the male mentor who took pity on her but then ended up falling for her, a couple where the man was adamant about not being married and his girlfriend of 7 years who wanted the ring, the married couple where the wife was frigid and the husband cheated (although he struggled with the decision for...like...15 minutes or so), the safe guy hung up on a girl who used him whenever her own self esteem was down, and a woman who was so withdrawn from the personal aspects of dating that she resorted to text messages and MySpace connections in order to meet the dregs of male society. In spite of the archetypes and predictability of the endings, I liked the film. It was a thoroughly enjoyable romantic comedy that rang true (and was cringe worthy during several scenes) because the situations depicted on the screen were real. These kinds of scenes are wonderful in that they are ones we see in real life (well, except for several of the "Hollywood Ending" scenes near the end of the film). If anything, the film points out that everyone suffers from the same issues in relationships and that we should not feel bad for failing NOR should we give up. A happy resolution is not such a bad thing (I was gonna say "happy ending", but that has SUCH an X-rated connotation nowadays).

So what about my movie going companions. Well, the first question likely will be "where the hell was Daisy, and without Daisy, who would comment on the men of the film?" Well, Daisy promised her mom that they would see this film together this weekend, so she passed. The second question would likely be "were Namby Pamby and Alleged Lady good film companions?" Yes, decidedly so. Not only were they into the film, they also made pithy observations several times throughout. Namby's comments lit up the entire theater. Oh wait...no...that bright light was coming from his iPhone as he proceeded to check his messages every 5 minutes or so. Darn those phones are bright. The only reprieve I had was when, during a quiet moment in the film, Namby proceeded to DROP the phone (with a loud clatter) onto the floor of the theater. The Alleged Lady was far more entertaining. Remember how I said that we were sitting 4 rows from the front? Well, imagine if you are sitting that close when the images of Bradley Cooper and Scarlett Johansson's breasts are on the screen (no nudity, but still). Whenever Bradley Cooper appeared, Alleged Lady would hungrily whisper "he is so hot-I can't look at the screen for so long." During one particular point, as Cooper's baby blues were staring directly out of the screen, the Alleged Lady buried her head into the chair and said "IT'S LIKE AN ECLIPSE-I CAN'T STARE AT IT FOR LONG OR ELSE I'LL GO BLIND!" She's so awesome.

At the end, Namby and I agreed on one thing. All men are jerks except for us!