He’s Just Not That Into You – who’d a thunk?
Okay, so it was never a movie I thought I would like. I mean when I want to, I can be a total sucker for the formulaic rom-com, and there have been times when my husband has taken me to task for watching ‘Notting Hill’ or ‘The Bachelor’ one too many times on my maternity leave for our second kid (back in ’01). Now, he’s just resigned that recent additions to our DVD library includes ‘The Notebook’ and ‘The Lakehouse’. Still, I thought this film might not quite fit the bill for me – I mean too many relationships and too cynical a title just didn’t seem too enticing.
Anyway, I found it on the Blu-Ray ‘weekly’ shelf so I thought I might as well for less than 2 bucks. So I asked the kids to do their own things because I wasn’t sure they’d get the complexity of the adult storyline (complexity? who was I kidding?) and my son dutifully went away to his little programming project, my daughter watched recorded shows on the Beyonwiz, and the toddler was fast asleep (it was a very late nap but I worked from home today so he tends to not follow his regular schedule like he does when he’s only with daddy).
I honestly didn’t think I’d be into this film, but I just really wanted to see some great-looking women in well-made clothes trying to look like we all look like in real life. You know, the way we look like when we go through our day looking sooo beautiful and together. =) I will say that I am definitely going to try the whole myriad shades of purple on short nails that Ginnifer Goodwin did throughout the movie. Of course, Jennifer Aniston and Jennifer Connelly looked impeccable, as usual. At the moment, I think I am shaped more like Scarlett Johansson though (everyone, please agree, okay, it’s really getting late) and I guess I better embrace that because it might not last that long.
But then I found myself tearing up when Gigi gets rejected by Alex. Honestly, I was never much into the ‘dating’ scene back in the dark ages (that is, the ’90s) but I found myself relating to the heartbreak of being rejected because I actually thought about the same ‘signs’ as well! How funny! My older son tried to politely ask what it was that I was crying about, but of course I couldn’t quite explain it to him (thus, the complexity and also silliness of it).
I hated the infidelity story the most (no surprise there), but I couldn’t relate to Janine’s character who was no longer ‘fun’ as a wife to hubby Ben. Early on in my marriage, I may have stopped being fun because I wanted to ‘succeed’ very badly and prove to everyone that marrying when we did was not a mistake. But I had to abandon that attitude eventually, because I know in my heart I didn’t get married to ‘succeed’ or to prove anything to anybody. And now that we’re almost at our 15th anniversary, I have never felt more rock-solid about our relationship and yet I know that anything is possible. So we’re not ‘working’ on anything, we’re both just enjoying life and love for whatever it brings our way and whatever it is right now. Now that’s fun!
Who’d a thunk that this is the movie to make me appreciate my marriage more? Honestly. We’re not the typical married-over-a-decade couple. I remember one of my younger colleagues, on finding out it was soon to be my 13th wedding anniversary exclaimed “Man, do you still have sex?”, to which I replied “Actually, it’ll only be the 2nd time this year on my anniversary” with a big cheeky grin on my face. I won’t get into it here, but in many ways I am very glad we are not conventional, and that we are in the company of many who are totally unconventional because they are in l-o-v-e. Who’d a thunk this was the movie to make me realize that? Love ya, Mahal!
