Have you ever watched a movie and found in entertaining, but slightly uncomfortable at the same time?
Dragged my mom out to see a late showing of “He’s Just Not That Into You” this weekend on Valentine’s Day. Thought a little romantic comedy/chick flick was the perfect this for this unholiest of days for singletons. I may have been slightly mistaken.
I read the book a while back as one of my guilty pleasure chick lit readings, in between serious Bibliophilia ventures. For some reason the book didn’t impact me as much as the movie. This could be for several reasons:
• Current relationship status is different than my status at time of reading the book.
• Live action is more convincing than simple words on a page that must be interpreted by my feeble mind.
• I was in denial.
But before I get too far ahead of myself, let’s examine the movie from a non-emotional state. It’s a very cute movie with good acting and well-timed humor. Highly recommend it for your next night out with the girls. The storyline is fun and there are some great lines in the movie that had people cracking up and nodding their heads in agreement. Eye candy-wise the movie is a winner for both genders. Even though he looks like he needs a cookie, Bradley Cooper is seriously hot; Justin Long is still the geeky girls drool object as a residual from his Mac ads; and even though he’s not my cup of tea, most girls will be happy to see Ben Affleck make his appearances. For the guys, my long-time girl crush Drew Barrymore is cute as ever, but sadly makes far too few appearances. She is joined by my newest girl crush Ginnifer Goodwin. I always liked her in “Big Love” but in this movie she’s so freakin’ adorable it’s disgusting (great hair, fun nail polish). And of course Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Connelly and Scarlett Johansson are classic-looking hotties I cannot imagine any man kicking out of bed.
***Spoilers below this line***
So, why would a funny movie like this make me uncomfortable? As Gigi started her first date recap with coworkers, I choked a little on my Diet Pepsi and had a, “Holy crap, that’s me and my friends” moment. And for the next hour and a half I kept having this odd feeling of dejavu.
When Beth has a discussion with Ben about marriage and he retorts with the “why do you need a piece of paper to justify what we feel/have” I scooted down in my seat and started fiddling with my drink straw. When Janine suddenly cracks over her husband’s lying and infidelity and throws his clothes erratically around the room and smashes a mirror, only to clean up the mess and neatly fold everything, I visibly twitched. And when Mary laments the days of single phone lines and answering machines, and talks about having to view multiple types of technology to get rejected and talks about MySpace being the new booty call, I laughed a knowing laugh and shook my head. I could even relate to Kevin Connolly taking Anna to the house he was thinking of purchasing and telling her he didn’t want to buy it unless he knew she could see herself living there someday, too.
Talk about empathy. At some point in the last few years, I have gone through similar things and felt the same way these fictional characters felt.
Right now I am fully immersed in my Gigi phase. Oh the things I have picked apart and attempted to interpret with my pals. The dialog in the movie could have easily been transcribed from some of my own conversations. (just replace alcohol with coffee or soda) Part of me feels guilty about it and another part feels vindicated because I’m obviously not alone. The gasps and oh craps from women around the theater that night attest to it. It was like an AA meeting where we didn’t have to stand up and confess to know that we’re all guilty and need help. (Big kudos the crazy drunk woman who was very blunt with her outbursts and made the entire theater feel better about theirs)
I know it looks crazy to outsiders because it feels crazy to me, but just like Gigi I’m still hesitant on giving up my inner hopeless romantic.
Why do we do freaking do this? Why do we pump our friends into a rabid frenzy about all things related to the opposite sex? Why do we feel the need to dissect everything? Why can’t things just be, and that’s it. I doubt this changes with age because my friends run the gamut: early 20s thru 50s and we all participate.Doesn't change with relationship status either - there's married folk, divorced folk, single, single and mingling, engaged, committed, just dating, the whole gamut. Even the guy pals are in on it, straight and gay.
As they say in the movie - Are we the exception or the rule?
1 comments:
I wasn't worried, until you mentioned a girl crush!
LoL Funny blog, guess I can't really relate being a guy. ;)
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