Ce que pensent les hommes

The film starts with a little girl in a playground getting bullied by a boy, and her mother telling her that this means that the boy likes her, setting up the premise that the more a guy treats a woman like dirt, the more she'll hang around on the phone waiting for his call. From this point we follow the relationship woes of six (no eight, nine, is it ten?) different people and their relationships ups and downs, as one guy is trapped in a loveless marriage, one couple realise they want different things and one woman who is trying to figure out how to play the dating game, the stories cross and intertwine and from this comical situations ensue.

Now, from the tone of the last part of that sentence you may well have come to the conclusion that this is just another standard romantic comedy chick-flick, and, on paper, it should be. But it's not. The script is very similar in tone and feel to "When Harry met Sally" with "supposed" regular people introducing each chapter of the film, the insights are decent and the dialogue contains a lot of honesty that I think many people can relate to. The cast are all first rate with special attention going to Ben Affleck, who has so needed a good role in front of the camera for ages, and Jennifer Aniston as the couple who can't move forward, also good are Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Connolly in their respective roles. The big star turns for me though are Ginnifer Goodwin and Justin Long as the hapless dater and the hapless dating coach, who are really good. For Long it's another step up the Hollywood ranks (pretty much the direction he's been heading since "Dodgeball") and for Goodwin it is a star-making turn that should do for her what "knocked-up" did for Heigl.

The film of course has a number of elements and outcomes that are extremely predictable (it IS a romantic comedy) but there's enough other stuff in there, and definite surprises at the end, to make it more than just the sum of its parts. It's charming, clever and, when viewed with a pantomime-style audience that I saw it with, a lot of fun, and I'm a guy! A cross between "When Harry met Sally" and "Friends" that doesn't try and jump on the gross-out comedy bandwagon.

Good stuff

Ugh, I can't believe I was dragged into liking this movie. It was trending to a 6 but finished at a 7, my cutoff point for "would watch again." I'll probably even find a used DVD so I can see what I missed on the edited tv version.

How dare they play "Somewhere Only We Know" by Keane near the end. That pushed it over the edge for me. Tears, UGH!!! I don't like rom coms and I'll never fall in love!!!! But every damn Jennifer Aniston movie rates a 7 with me! STOP IT JENNIFER!!!!!

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, as did the group of female friends I attended it with. It was well-written, well-acted, and funny.

I think the reason some people, er, men, didn't like it was because it portrays some men as lying cheats, others as terrified of intimacy, and some as weirdos. In short, the basic variety any woman runs into on Match.com. Then there were a couple of stand-up guy characters. Were parts of the plot formulaic? Sure. It's a movie. There were a few surprises, however.

All of the female characters were likable, which is a switch from standard Hollywood sexism. The acting was above average and I was pleasantly surprised by Scarlett Johannson's performance. I only didn't like Ginnifer Goodwin's slapstick-style performance as a desperate dater. A little subtlety would have made her character more poignant and more believable.

The film really does contain a lot of good advice for people in the dating scene, both men and women.

My girlfriend and I, both at or approaching our 50's, saw this in a theater that was absolutely filled with high school girls. That surprised me actually, given that most of the stars in this film are well-beyond high-school age. But they, like the rest of the audience, seemed to really enjoy this film, as did we. The relationships were nicely intertwined without being contrived ("Crash" anyone?), and unlike the similar movie "Love Actually," nothing portrayed was too outlandish. The convention of adding comments by "real" people to introduce story lines was well done and amusing. If I find any fault with the film, it's that all of the guys are presented as having relationship "issues" or as being total bone-heads. Hopefully there are more "nice guys" interspersed in society than what this film might lead you to believe (though I must say that the attitudes presented are definitely not inaccurate).

Overall, a very nice film whose 2 hour plus running time goes by rather quickly. If you've ever been in or tried to be in a relationship, you'll probably enjoy this movie.

A limp ensemble relationship movie that feels like the frustrated venting of a bitter single girl after a blind date gone badly awry.

This is the kind of movie where a bunch of 20 and 30-somethings own beautiful loft apartments they couldn't possibly afford and struggle with relationship issues that are just boring to watch other people grapple with if you yourself are over the age of 30. Once again we're expected to accept Jennifer Aniston as a sad sack who can't get a date after she dumps the long-time boyfriend (Ben Affleck, playing not so much a character as a woman's fantasy made real) who won't commit to marriage. Ginnifer Goodwin is the doormat who can't figure out why guys won't call her even though they say they will. Justin Long is terribly miscast as a womanizer who doesn't know when he's fallen in love himself (I can't look at him without seeing the image of his dork from "Dodgeball" getting hit in the face with a wrench, which is not far from what I wanted to do to his character in this movie). Jennifer Connelly and Bradley Cooper are the lone married couple in the film, and because this is a Hollywood movie about relationships, of course the married couple MUST be miserable. Scarlett Johanssen is a bombshell with giant knockers that I couldn't take my eyes off of; Drew Barrymore might as well not be in the movie, and only is because a.) she co-produced it and b.) the filmmakers needed a forum in which to introduce a bunch of stock gay characters. You want to throttle pretty much everyone by the time the movie's over; I settled for thanking God I didn't have to be friends with any of them.

Though the film was only written by two people, it has the feeling of something written by committee. Characters aren't consistent or believable; those played by Goodwin and Connelly more often than not come across as mentally ill. In the world of this film, there are only two kinds of marriages: the ones that end in adultery and bitterness, or the ones that end in a ridiculously romanticized version of happily-ever-after. No wonder so many people have trouble making marriages work if they're using films like this as examples.

What a dud, and probably solid evidence that movies shouldn't be adapted from smug and jokey self-help books written by jackass talk show hosts.

Grade: C+