Kate Leaver
TonyKI'm Just Not That Into Miss Scarlett
February 17th 2009 14:23
[Film Review]
The phrase "He's just not that into you" brought Sex and the City's Miranda a great deal of clarity in her relationships. Women everywhere who fancied themselves as a Carrie Bradshaw, a Samantha or a Charlotte made it their mantra, as if acknowledging that someone does not like you is empowering. People spoke about this concept as if it were new. They spoke about it and they spoke about it. Presumably people made their own observations, told their own stories. Then they realised it was a pretty empty one-liner and moved on.
...And then Hollywood thought it would be a good idea to make a film about it.
TRAILER (Warning: these are the best bits)
Let's start at the beginning; a very good place to start. A grubby little boy shoves a little girl in the sandpit, whose mother tells her this just means he likes her. This scenario is set up as an allegory for the torture of love. Just in case anyone should miss this sweet connection, a narrator kindly removes any subtlety by explaining it. This is a delightful trend throughout the film that ensures no viewer is left to make their own conclusions.
Incidentally, The Great Sandpit Incident is also the finest moment in the film. Once this sandpit-dwelling youngster learns that men who love her will always hurt her, we lurch forward into adult life where she and everyone she consorts with is jaded, cold and unappealing.
Enter Scarlett Johansson. She's as buxom and bouncy as ever, and if you're lucky this may well distract you from the fact that Miss Scarlett ends up playing the very same emotionally elusive character she always does. To her credit she did try to play this role in a light, cutesy way. Unfortunately her painful self-awareness, puppy-eyed seductiveness and persistent need to play a saucy minx won out. She played a singer, but we never heard her sing. She played a temptress, but her one sex scene was utterly passionless. She played a romantic, but forgot to bring any softness to the role.
Scarlett is not all to blame for this synthetic travesty of a film. Jennifer Connolly, who was the most charismatic and glowing wife to Russell Crowe's character in A Beautiful Mind, this time played a rigid, relentlessly boring one. Yes, her character was supposed to be harsh, stilted and stuck in her stoic ways. But every time we needed to see a redeeming glimpse of humanity, we got nothing. Her confrontational scenes were embarrassing, her contained anger laughable.
Bradley Cooper, whose face too strongly resembles a weasel for him to make any sort of sensitivity plausible, plodded through the movie with so little commitment to his role you might wonder why he showed up at all. Ah, yes. He gets to grope Scarlett a few times, massaging her only real acting assets.
The only watchable plot was between Gigi and Alex, played by Ginnifer Goodwin and Justin Long. It was predictable, it was cliche.... but it was warm and familiar and cute. Ginnifer and Justin outshone some of the most bankable stars in the industry. Ginnifer was delightful in her naivety and even her most annoying moments were endearing. Justin, though I'm not sure why he was cast as the ladies' man, was charming and likable throughout. They brought such gentility and energy to their roles it is a wonder their relationship was not just given its own film.
Jennifer Anniston was styled as immaculately as always, but I felt like I was watching another Jen; a hollow version of the vivacious and charming woman who usually graces our screens. Her performance saddened me, but not because of her character's predicament. A deeper melancholy than her yearning-for-marriage role warranted swamped her in this film, and I do not know why.
She played opposite Ben Affleck, who must have been onscreen for a total of eight minutes. Though he was uninspiring, Ben's character had the only sensible perspective on marriage throughout the film. This of course was disposed of when the movie, which all along promised unhappy endings, succumbed to marrying off Ben and Jen anyway.
The ultimate insult to feminine strength of course was that all women are marriage-hungry, man-trapping beasts who trick their lovers into a life of stagnant affection.
Wait, so this film implied that all men are bastards and all women are emotionally demanding banshees? That's not even insulting anymore, it's just old.
It is so hackneyed a concept that its appearance in this movie is almost unbelievable.
Surely now the writers' strike is over someone can concoct a richer, smarter model for gender relations. And surely they could splurge on coming up with an original title, rather than just lifting one straight from a line of dialogue in a television show.
He's Just Not That Into You
The phrase "He's just not that into you" brought Sex and the City's Miranda a great deal of clarity in her relationships. Women everywhere who fancied themselves as a Carrie Bradshaw, a Samantha or a Charlotte made it their mantra, as if acknowledging that someone does not like you is empowering. People spoke about this concept as if it were new. They spoke about it and they spoke about it. Presumably people made their own observations, told their own stories. Then they realised it was a pretty empty one-liner and moved on.
...And then Hollywood thought it would be a good idea to make a film about it.
TRAILER (Warning: these are the best bits)
Let's start at the beginning; a very good place to start. A grubby little boy shoves a little girl in the sandpit, whose mother tells her this just means he likes her. This scenario is set up as an allegory for the torture of love. Just in case anyone should miss this sweet connection, a narrator kindly removes any subtlety by explaining it. This is a delightful trend throughout the film that ensures no viewer is left to make their own conclusions.
Incidentally, The Great Sandpit Incident is also the finest moment in the film. Once this sandpit-dwelling youngster learns that men who love her will always hurt her, we lurch forward into adult life where she and everyone she consorts with is jaded, cold and unappealing.
Enter Scarlett Johansson. She's as buxom and bouncy as ever, and if you're lucky this may well distract you from the fact that Miss Scarlett ends up playing the very same emotionally elusive character she always does. To her credit she did try to play this role in a light, cutesy way. Unfortunately her painful self-awareness, puppy-eyed seductiveness and persistent need to play a saucy minx won out. She played a singer, but we never heard her sing. She played a temptress, but her one sex scene was utterly passionless. She played a romantic, but forgot to bring any softness to the role.
Scarlett is not all to blame for this synthetic travesty of a film. Jennifer Connolly, who was the most charismatic and glowing wife to Russell Crowe's character in A Beautiful Mind, this time played a rigid, relentlessly boring one. Yes, her character was supposed to be harsh, stilted and stuck in her stoic ways. But every time we needed to see a redeeming glimpse of humanity, we got nothing. Her confrontational scenes were embarrassing, her contained anger laughable.
Bradley Cooper, whose face too strongly resembles a weasel for him to make any sort of sensitivity plausible, plodded through the movie with so little commitment to his role you might wonder why he showed up at all. Ah, yes. He gets to grope Scarlett a few times, massaging her only real acting assets.
The only watchable plot was between Gigi and Alex, played by Ginnifer Goodwin and Justin Long. It was predictable, it was cliche.... but it was warm and familiar and cute. Ginnifer and Justin outshone some of the most bankable stars in the industry. Ginnifer was delightful in her naivety and even her most annoying moments were endearing. Justin, though I'm not sure why he was cast as the ladies' man, was charming and likable throughout. They brought such gentility and energy to their roles it is a wonder their relationship was not just given its own film.
Jennifer Anniston was styled as immaculately as always, but I felt like I was watching another Jen; a hollow version of the vivacious and charming woman who usually graces our screens. Her performance saddened me, but not because of her character's predicament. A deeper melancholy than her yearning-for-marriage role warranted swamped her in this film, and I do not know why.
She played opposite Ben Affleck, who must have been onscreen for a total of eight minutes. Though he was uninspiring, Ben's character had the only sensible perspective on marriage throughout the film. This of course was disposed of when the movie, which all along promised unhappy endings, succumbed to marrying off Ben and Jen anyway.
The ultimate insult to feminine strength of course was that all women are marriage-hungry, man-trapping beasts who trick their lovers into a life of stagnant affection.
Wait, so this film implied that all men are bastards and all women are emotionally demanding banshees? That's not even insulting anymore, it's just old.
It is so hackneyed a concept that its appearance in this movie is almost unbelievable.
Surely now the writers' strike is over someone can concoct a richer, smarter model for gender relations. And surely they could splurge on coming up with an original title, rather than just lifting one straight from a line of dialogue in a television show.
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