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February 6, 2009
She's just not that into this movie
This new movie He's Just Not That Into You, based on a book, based on a line of dialogue from a sitcom, looks just awful. I've been trying to figure out what is so loathsome about this movie, and Manohla Dargis's review spells it out: what kind of woman would be at all interested in watching a movie like this? It's ostensibly about the realities of women's dating lives, but the movie sounds like a unreconstructed male dating fantasy: dickheady guys are surrounded with gorgeous, available, and interested women who are also highly insecure and probably crazy. When they want to see these women, they do, and when they don't, the ladies have to go off by themselves and read self-help books to try to cope with the agony of rejection.
The problem here is that the movie is marketed all wrong. The target audience should be single men, not single women. If the writers had thrown in better jokes, some decent male actors, a lot more sex, and replaced all scenes in which women shop or get manicures together with scenes of guys playing video games and doing shots, you'd have a movie that would actually make sense.
Actually, I think the movie I'm envisioning is the last 6 movies produced by Judd Apatow.
Anyway, Manohla's review is great. She envisions what the movie would look like if it were successfully targeted to a female audience, by asking, "What Would Thelma and Louise Do?" after a character goes on a bad date with a drippy guy named Conor:
Adult women like Louise might pull a Mrs. Robinson on special occasions, though not if there’s a man like Mr. Madsen steaming up the room. But adults have become something of an endangered species in big studio movies, particularly in romantic comedies, where female desire now largely seems reserved for shoes, wedding bells and babies.
A good anti-HJNTIY is last year's Happy-Go-Lucky, in which a female character actually gets what she wants sometimes without being desperate, pathetic, or insane.
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Comments
I think the blogger doesn't understand how movies work. They're not there to show people how they think: they're there to TELL people what to think.
Also, it is sad that Drew Barrymore surrounded by gay men is not enough to turn any movie into a success. Give that girl a tranny big enough and she can move the world.
Posted by: T-Rock at February 9, 2009 11:05 AM
You're both right. The movie was #1 this weekend, and masochistic women accounted for 80% of audiences.
So yes-- tell me what to think! Especially if you're telling me to sit and wait patiently for some dude like Kevin Connolly to come along and select me as his female of interest, and grant me the gift of his attention for the duration of time that he sees fit. Lucky me.
Posted by: Amy at February 9, 2009 11:41 AM
Yeah, but---wanna bet that it makes a big pile of money?
Posted by: That Fuzzy Bastard at February 7, 2009 9:30 AM