I'm Just Not That Into the Movie

As you can probably tell from this title, I saw the movie "He's Just Not That Into You" this weekend. I'd read the book, which, interestingly enough has the title, "He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys." That's right. It's essentially a self-help book.

Written in a humorous but brutally honest tone, it is pretty much spot on accurate. If he doesn't call you, if he doesn't want to sleep with you, if he is with someone else, etc., etc. he is not into you. All true. The mantra of the book is that you are exceptional, but you are NOT THE EXCEPTION.

Then there is this movie, which is an absolute abortion.

The filmmakers stacked the cast, but there is a reason that the "No-Excuses Truth" part was left out of the title. Plainly put, this movie lies--completely at the expense of the very premise of the book. It is a complete and utter fabrication of reality that chronicles a handful of situations/individuals that were in the book, but deviates completely from realistic outcomes.

Essentially, this movie makes every female in it the exception, just so there is a happy ending and it makes money. People are stupid and can't handle the truth. Hollywood knows this and preys on them accordingly.

What's sad is that this is actually quite a useful book, and the one character who was a voice of reason for most of it (implicitly taking on the role of Greg, the author), ends up being the living counterexample. While I don't doubt this does happen on rare occasions, this is the EXCEPTION. Therefore, the movie is a direct contradiction to the book.

Furthermore, people will see it thinking that they now know what the book has to say, and never read the book. Thus, all the myths of dating that the book looks to dispel are simply perpetuated.

A few funny lines, a few funny moments and an absolutely stacked cast, but this movie was an outright failure. It's a feel-good chick flick that simply shares part of a title with a best-seller. Nothing of substance comes from this movie. And by the way, the Handy Market is in Burbank, CA...not Baltimore.