Based on the New York Times Bestselling self-help book by Sex in the City writers Greg Behrendt and Liz Tucillo, He's Just Not That Into You is a sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, and sometimes sweet exploration of pretty much exactly what its title says.

He's just not that into you&ellips; if he's not asking you out. He's just not that into you&ellips; if he only wants to see you when he's drunk. (S)he's just not that into you&ellips; if (s)he's disappeared on you.

And in much the same way that Behrendt and Tucillo highlight the common indications that men just aren't that into women and which women try to explain away to their own detriment, the film presents a group of eight intersecting characters in various forms of relationships and non-relationships, phases of dating and commitment, and stages of confusion, denial, and clarity as to whether those they are involved with are in fact "into them" or not... and simply asks us all to look at what we see and acknowledge that the signs are usually there for us to read.

Through the romantically challenged Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin) and her sage bartender Alex (Justin Long), we are delivered the hard truth that "if he doesn't call, he doesn't want to" and "if he wants to date you, he will." In the seven-year, yet never stamped-by-marriage relationship between Beth (Jennifer Aniston) and Neil (Ben Affleck), long-term relationships everywhere are thrown the hardball that if a man is really into you, he will ask you to marry him. And playing hopscotch between Connor (Kevin Connolly) the devoted boyfriend she barely gives any of her time or affection and Ben (Bradley Cooper) the married man she "knows" is the one for her, Anna (Scarlett Johansson) makes things both that much more interesting and depressing in what becomes an increasingly complicated mess of four different people discovering that "no sex," "insane variations of being available," and "being a selfish jerk, a bully, or a really big freak" are all pretty clear indications that you and he or she just aren't going to work out.

With Gigi taking on the role of most of the film and book's intended audience and Alex stepping into the role of the straight-talking, relationship-simplifying Behrendt, the film becomes both a presentation and a test of the very signs that he or she might not be that into you. It pushes us to see that pure logic means we are more likely to be the rule than the exception. It nudges us to cut our losses and move on, instead of making up explanations and hanging on. And even though reading the signs for what they are and letting unpromising situations go may leave us alone at the bar, at weddings, or on Saturday nights, as Behrendt reminds readers multiple times in his book, there really is no use wasting our time on people who aren't interested in us.

Central to the film's take on relationships is the importance of action, and action taken out of free will. If he says he's going to call us but doesn't, chances are that he did not get laryngitis, travel to the outer realms of cell phone reception, or become otherwise incapable of picking up the phone due to physical or situational constraint. If he says he wants to make the relationship work, but repeatedly lies to our face and keeps cheating on us, his behavior pretty much speaks for itself. But thankfully, although a good chunk of the film presents the disaster that can unfold when we ignore Behrendt's rules and force relationships that were reluctant from the beginning, the film also reveals that sometimes he will call, he will be available, and he will actually be that into us. Sure, marriage may go against our long-held convictions, but if we say we love someone and really mean it, we can't help but step up to be that person who is there for better or for worse, for richer and for poorer, and 'til death do us part. We may tell ourselves we're not interested in that way and never will be, but when we find ourselves pushing aside pieces of our own life to fit that person in, agonizing over their absent phone calls, and trying to make their life better in any way we can, we have fallen and fallen hard. And while many of us may have to navigate through more instances where he or she will never step up to prove his or her ambiguous declarations of love or commitment, the movie tells us never to forget that it is possible.

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