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🚨Spoiler Alert!🚨
Even though this movie is a decade old, and you've probably seen spoilers at this point
In 2009 Warner Bros. Pictures released the infamous rom/com He's Just Not That Into You
The movie follows a variety of couples and single-folk living it up in Baltimore and trying to find love
It starts off promisingly enough, by calling out the long-established societal myth that if a boy treats you like crap, he must just like you
But then it spirals into insinuating that women need men's approval to be fulfilled in life
Then they set up an array of predictable, and tragic, characters based on classic rom/com tropes
First up to bat is Gigi, our cute and quirky leading lady who's never seen doing anything other than chasing after men
Next up is Alex, Gigi's friend/love interest who basically treats her terribly under the premise of "keeping it real" for 95% of the movie
That is until he realizes, in the last 15 minutes, he's actually been in love with her the whole time and rushes to her door to profess his undying love
Then there's Gigi's level-headed best friend Janine who spends a lot of her time trying to talk Gigi down and is seemingly happily married
PSYCH. Throughout the film, she gets increasingly suspicious that her husband, Ben, is keeping something from her, and proceeds to have about 12 neurotic breakdowns without ever actually talking to him
Turns out she's right and Ben is cheating on her with Anna, a sexy aspiring singer/songwriter he met at the supermarket. Not to mention Anna actually believes Ben will leave his wife for her
Of course, this all blows up in everyone's faces and shit hits the fan. To the film's credit, neither Janine or Anna stays with Ben and they all go their separate ways to try and figure their lives out.
Oh did I mention that while all this going on, Anna is stringing along Connor, a real estate agent who's completely obsessed with her?
Anna eventually entertains Connor's affections, for like 10 seconds, only to break his heart by rejecting his proposal to move together and telling him she wants all the lovely things he described just not with him.
But no need to worry about Bambi the real estate agent of denial. He winds up connecting with and eventually dating, Mary Harris, Anna's best friend
Last but not least we have Beth. Beth's been with her boyfriend Neil for 7 years and wants to get married. But Neil, surprise surprise, doesn't believe in marriage
So in typical movie fashion, Beth dumps Neil and attempts to move on with her life.
After an appropriate amount of time, Neil comes crawling back and makes her realize she’d rather have a guy who treats her right, loves her and won't commit than no guy at all.
Of course, after she takes him back is when he magically gets over all his commitment issues and asks her to marry him
Cringeworthy rom/com tropes aside, my real issue with He's Just Not That Into You is how they portray women as having no lives outside of their relationships
Next time create some three-dimensional characters with motivations and needs outside of romantic love, instead of reaffirming the trope that the guy will change his ways for you even though there's absolutely no proof that he wants to or will change.
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