Column:

'He's Just Not That Into You,' Scarlett Johansson fail to impress

By Adam Daniels

Published Feb. 16, 2009

Dear "He's Just Not That Into You,"

We just had a lunch date. Admittedly, I didn't have time to comb my hair and my shirt was a little wrinkled, but aside from that I feel like I held up my end of the bargain.

I showed up on time. I paid. I even tried not to laugh during Scarlett Johansson's monologues because I think it's cute how you still take her seriously. And most of all, I did nothing if not respect you as a woman.

But to be frank, I think that's more than you can say you did for yourself. So don't worry about checking your voicemail, don't cross your fingers in hopes that Justin Long doesn't get too big to do the sequel. I'll just go ahead and tell you: I'm just not that into you.

I don't know you very well so you might assume I'm jumping to conclusions. After all, I'm not exactly your type. At best, maybe you could have pleasantly surprised me and proved to be an insightful journey into the wall that exists between the male and female psyche.

And at worst, at least I could have seen what all your fuss was about. But I walked away with neither of these things, and I thought telling you why in your own language might achieve closure.

You don't allow any of your female characters to have an actual personality. I understand self-improvement books need direct and condensed examples, so for the sake of this film they needed to show the extremes. OK, OK. All the games and vagueness guys put girls through makes them crazy.

I don't think I would have called any of these girls back either. Is it because I'm a jerk? Maybe. But it's also because you didn't let them breathe outside of their defined rule or exception, leaving none of their positive aspects to show even though all of their negative and vulnerable ones were out to dry.

You stereotyped an entire demographic in 30 seconds. Seriously? Does every gay man in Baltimore shops at Barney's and learn dialect from Richard Simmons?

You defined happiness solely by relationships. The women in "Into You" seem to be doing pretty well for themselves. But the only thing that came to define them was their relationships with men.

One of the key merits of the book seemed to be the idea that women in bad or dead-end relationships could draw from its advice and seek out their own happiness as opposed to forcing it from relationships that just don't have it in them.

But while the latter is touched on in the movie, it seems the film largely creates a cycle of recognizing steps that prevent unhappiness and mistreatment but only is able to remedy things through potentially successful relationships with men.

In closing, you never surprised me. Even when you had a few key opportunities to make some interesting decisions, you opted for the easy route and your best performance was from the guy from the Apple commercials. It's been real. Don't wait up.

Sincerely,

Still Not That Into You