Los Angeles Times
"[A] sweet confection of a romantic comedy....The pacing and the performances are all bright and breezy..." 02/06/2009USA Today
"[The movie] has some very funny lines and offers sharp-eyed commentary on the state of relationships in the era of instant messages and MySpace." 02/06/2009 Box Office
4 stars out of 5 -- "Screenwriters Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein rightly sugar this 'rulebook' with a steady stream of laugh-at-yourself humor....The film does an incredible job of making the tragic stabs at relationships seem so logical.... 02/04/2009 Premiere
3.5 stars out of 4 -- "It's hilarious....Ginnifer Goodwin gives a standout performance..." 02/06/2009 ReelViews 7 of 10
He's Just Not That Into You seeks to mine the same vein of romantic comedy lore as Love, Actually - the multi-arc story in which characters cross each others' paths and interact in an attempt to show different facets of one emotion. Unfortunately, while Love, Actually succeeded in providing well-developed characters in (mostly) interesting situations, He's Just Not That Into You is often flat with subplots that feel rushed and/or contrived. The comedy is perfunctory, almost as if the filmmakers wanted their child to be a drama but didn't feel confident enough in the material to proceed without a layer of false levity to keep things from becoming too serious...As is typically the case with ensemble movies, some of the tales are more interesting than others. In He's Just Not That Into You, there are four primary segments. The first, which consumes the most screen time and is also arguably the least compelling, centers on wallflower Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin) and bartender/player Alex (Justin Long). The two meet at his club and he gives her advice about why men don't call back some women. Thereafter, she seeks him out whenever she has questions about dating or male/female relationships...The director is Ken Kwapis, a man whose primary credits are from television. He did, however, navigate the tricky waters of an ensemble tale with The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Here, he's not as successful. Paradoxically, while all of the stories would benefit from more screen time and there's often a sense that random scenes have been ruthlessly trimmed, the movie as a whole runs too long. The problem is character investment. We care about a few of these individuals, but not all of them, and when the ones we're interested aren't around, we lose focus. This makes the movie a solid choice for at-home viewing, when the fast-forward button is available, but not such a great selection for Valentine's Day in a theater. - James Berardinelli
Chicago Sun-Times 6 of 10
Ever noticed how many self-help books are limited to the insight expressed in their titles? You look at the cover, you know everything inside. The rest is just writing. I asked Amazon to "surprise me" with a page from inside the best-seller He's Just Not That Into You, and it jumped me to page 17, where I read: "My belief is that if you have to be the aggressor, if you have to pursue, if you have to do the asking out, nine times out of 10, he's just not that into you."...I personally would not be interested in a woman who needed to buy a book to find that out. Guys also figure out that when she never returns your calls and is inexplicably always busy, she's just not that into you. What is this, brain surgery? I have tried, but I cannot imagine what was covered in the previous 16 pages of that book. I am reminded of the book review once written by Ambrose Bierce: "The covers of this book are too far apart."...The movie version of "He's Just Not That Into You" dramatizes this insight with comic vignettes played by actors who are really too good for this rom-com. Jennifer Aniston in particular has a screen presence that makes me wonder why she rarely takes on the kinds of difficult roles her co-stars Jennifer Connelly, Scarlett Johansson and Drew Barrymore have played. There are depths there. I know it...The movie takes place in modern-day Baltimore, where those four, and Ginnifer Goodwin, play women who should ask themselves: Is he really that into me?...There is one superb monologue, by Drew Barrymore, who complains that she is driven crazy by the ways guys always seem to be communicating in another medium...This is a very far from perfect movie, and it ends on an unsatisfactory note. Stop reading now because I am going to complain that most of its stories have happy endings. Not in the real world, they don't. In the real world, the happy endings come only with a guy who's really into you. I should write a self-help book: If Some Guy Says He Loves You, Check It Out. - Roger Ebert
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