I'M JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU EITHER, SO THERE!

The movie finally came out. Now, folks, I had banked on going in, gorging myself on moviecorn, and watching the Holy Grail of dating knowledge. I thought I'd leave a changed woman. Instead, I left an entertained woman with m&m-related food coma (if men aren't into me, at least I can eat what I want!). Oh well, ya win some, you lose some.

Reasons to love this movie:

1) Ben Affleck suddenly got hot! Did anyone else notice this? Was anyone else as surprised as I was to find him attractive after all these years? I thought he'd gone off and bloated himself on Violet's leftover cookies, but he was looking pretty good. A little skinny, but if you're in a scene with Jennifer Aniston I suppose you have to do that or you'll look like a piglet, and no one wants that for their big on-screen comeback. Ok, not the #1 thing to love about the movie, but the first one that comes to mind.

2) Fun cast of characters. A lot of people are in this movie, yet none of the big names carry the movie. I spent much of the movie wondering if Jennifer A/Ben Affleck had ever co-starred; it felt like they must have, but they probably hadn't. There's probably a fun 6-degrees of something game to get out of this movie? Everyone plays their typecasting, so don't get your panties in a bunch. Ben is "your typical guy". The hot sleazy guy from Wedding Crashers is a hot sleazy guy (whose name apparently escapes me). Scarlett as nymphette. Drew as quirky. And so on. I like knowing what to expect I guess! At least on a Sunday, and especially when my mouth is too full of candy to really, you know, think.

3) Insight. In case any of you missed a page of the book, even just a page, then you should see this. It's a really nice, subtle way to help your friend who just doesn't get it get it. But nicely. (more on the insight in a bit)

4) Hope for single people. Worth the price of admission, naturally.

5) Delicate balance of cute and insightful. It's cute and sweet, but not enough to make you cry. I HATE when movies prey upon my emotions. Keep your little heartwarming moments, your five-hanky drawn-out deaths scenes, and incredible reunions to yourself Hollywood. Stuff it! If I cry, it's gonna be on my terms!

6) Jennifer Connelly's eyebrows' cameo. I think they deserve separate billing, don't you? I DARE you to try watching this movie without thinking about how you'd shape them, given the opportunity.

So SOMEHOW people missed this whole phenomenon. Is it warm under your rock? The other night a friend asked me "Wait, so this was a BOOK before a movie? How interesting!" I excuse her on grounds of her being married. While the rest of us read this book and discussed it in depth to the point that Oprah's book club would be proud, she was at home with her husband. Go figure.

The beginning of the movie brings up something I don't recall being in the book, but it's insightful and worth repeating. It says when you're little and a boy is mean to you or calls you names or whatever, that we're told "it's because he LIKES YOU!" Cute, and probably true at age, oh, 6. But then we process using this "fact" for the rest of our lives. Problematically, we forget to untangle ourselves from the idiocy of childhood, and we continue with that assumption straight though adulthood. We never reboot. We just keep going because no one pulled us aside around 13 or 14 years of age to tell us that "so um, P.S, right around now, you can start banking on it that if he's mean he's just an asshole. Have a nice life!"

Instead, we eternally read into everything guys do optimistically. When he doesn't call or he blows us off or he "forgets" something, we smile, feeling the warmth inside of unrequited love (aka heartburn). And because *no one* got the memo in those teenage years, our girlfriends bolster each other with equally misinformed interpretations. It's a serious blind leading the blind situation we have here.

If a guy doesn't call me, I have 10 girls on speed dial who will tell me that he's hesitating because he is intimidated by some aspect of me, or that the timing is off, or that he's just feeling it out, or that he's restrained by some social custom that somehow overrides his "undoubted" attraction to me. Now, friends, this movie and book has made its bizillions by popping the aforementioned balloon. Greg Behrendt unabashedly overshadows his co-author Amy Tucillo and offers himself up as the brutally honest guy friend you never asked for: You want to know why he didn't call? Because He's just not that into you. You want to know why he makes out with you but never takes you on proper dates? Because he's just not that into you. You want to know why he doesn't introduce you to his friends? Why he flakes? Why he doesn't call you his girlfriend... SAY IT WITH ME NOW!

The movie gives you the brutal lessons and weaves it into a sometimes-awkward narrative. It does an interesting thing, though, diverging from the book in a distinct way. As background: the protagonist is a somehow charmingly annoying girl who is a composite of every overly-optimistic-clingy-trait you and your 4 closest girlfriends have. You each have one such trait, she carries them ALL. You spend the movie alternatively rooting for her and cringing at her.

So, back to the schism between book and film - the book teaches you to give these "not into you"-having guys the big single-finger salute and move on, an empowered woman; it tells you to move on to greener pastures and halfheartedly assures you someone else more "deserving" will be out there. But then, in typical guy fashion, the movie SENDS MIXED MESSAGES! I actually looked this up, and according to Imdb, the movie is written by Abby Kohn and Mark Silverstein. Now, my guess is that Abby wanted to give it a clear ending: the girl learns her lesson and is empowered as a single. Stay the course, stay true to the book, mission accomplished.

But then Mark comes in and effs it up. He thinks about how he has put his masculine cred on the line by writing a chick flick and says "Abby, our movie will NEVER make it big if we don't give it a Hollywood ending. People are suffering a recession; now is not the time to promote a feminist agenda. Let the guy get the girl, would you? For AMERICA!"

And so [SPOILER ALERT!!!] he decides that in the end of the script the main girl -- who has spent two cringe-inducing hours over-reading the subtle signs of the guy we are SURE isn't interested in and who has been humiliated into finally believing that guys aren't into her and she's basically psycho (slash clingy slash pathetic)-- ends up being right about him all along!

Now what's the takeaway in that?!

Well, I can't tell you. What I can tell you is that the movie has some funny lines and some insightful observations about dating in the modern age. Coupled-off people should go see it so they can feel self-congratulatory for getting off this freakin battlefield. And singles should see it because, at least on screen, there's someone more pathetic than even your most pathetic, Facebook-stalking-drive-by-go-where-he-is-coincidentally day.

Personally, I came home from the movie purged of the last remnants of "does he or doesn't he" I've been carrying around about a few different people. It lightens your mental load quite a bit. I asked in an earlier post if guys give "hints"; the movie (mostly) suggests that they do not. That they communicate in broad strokes, that they will make their interest known, so don't sit around waiting for it. That you won't miss their signs if there *are* signs.

But I've gotta say, it's not that we girls don't *know* this. I think we just suffer choosy amnesia. You can have all the factual knowledge in the world and still want to follow your optimism. If you tell me I have a terminal disease (analogy made in honor of pending Valentine's day?), do I stop living? Nope! I keep moving on, doing my best, hoping for a miracle cure. We all do it, all day long.

What's lovely about this movie is that dating sucks on all levels, and someone pointed fun at it in a compassionate, non-barfy way, and without needing to resort to disgusting sexual humor. This one is for the girls. Relentless romantic optimism is personified, and -- for ONCE -- it wins.

In such a disillusioned and sarcastic world as the one we seem to be living in these days, it's just what the love doctor ordered.