He’s just not that into you

Distinctly overlong yet ultimately rewarding, He’s just not that into you follows a myriad of young adults, including Ben Affleck’s Neil, Scarlett Johansson’s Anna, and Bradley Cooper’s Ben, as they jump in and out of each others’ beds and navigate the perilous waters of contemporary relationships. The film, based on the best-selling book by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, generally comes off as an affable endeavor that’s consistently buoyed by the almost uniformly appealing performances, with Affleck’s effortlessly charismatic turn as the commitment-phobic boyfriend of Jennifer Aniston’s Beth standing as an obvious highlight. There inevitably reaches a point, however, at which screenwriters Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein seem to be spinning their wheels, as the movie slowly-but-surely falls prey to spurts of repetition that are surely a result of the unfortunate (and entirely unwieldy) two-hour-and-nine-minute running time. It consequently becomes increasingly difficult to overlook the various deficiencies within the script, including dialogue that seems to have emerged directly from a self-help relationship book and the creeping realization that virtually all of the male characters are jerks (initially, anyway). The movie remains relatively watchable even during its most superfluous stretches, however, and it’s impossible to deny that some of these stories (eg the Affleck/Aniston subplot) ultimately pack an unexpectedly romantic and flat-out emotional punch as they’re resolved. Stripped of at least a quarter of its length, He’s just not that into you certainly had the potential to establish itself as an above-average entry within the romantic-comedy genre – yet there’s little doubt that the movie generally succeeds as a diverting, unapologetically sitcom-like bit of escapism.

*** out of ****