The second a high profile chick flick comes to theaters, something happens to most women: our "girls night out" radar goes up and we gather our best girl friends for a night out which includes dinner, followed by the much anticipated chick flick.
In April 2008, that movie was
Sex and the City. During the premiere, girls waited in a long line with abated breath to find out if Carrie married the man of her dreams – and somewhere in the back of our minds, we were all hoping that we too would find that man.
This year, that movie is
He's Just Not That Into You, which made number one at the box office this past weekend, and includes an array of A-list actors. Most girls have read the book by Greg Bernhardt, on how guys do things that should prove to us ladies, that he's simply not into us. But the book wasn't enough – we wanted a movie too.
So, just as with many high profile chick flicks, I gathered three of my best girlfriends and yes – we got dressed up, we did our hair, we had dinner and we arrived at the movie theater to a long line of girls (and some somber boyfriends). It was chaos at its best – this is what happens when you get a bunch of females on a Friday night and make them wait. We get crabby and pushy, and the claws come out if anyone tries to cut in line.
He's Just Not That Into You is a somewhat emotionally draining experience. You realize that you've either been in that situation or know someone who has, or fear that you could be in one soon. The difference with this movie is that it isn’t a chick-flick the entire time. It tries to deal with the more dramatic and serious sides of relationships. The movie has five plotlines interconnecting with one another. They only needed two of them to really drive the point home. They had too many characters dealing with too many scenarios that could have been saved for another film.
There’s Beth (Jennifer Aniston) who is trying to cope with being in a relationship with someone who doesn't want to get married, Janine (Jennifer Connolly) and her husband are going through a rough patch in their marriage – and when Anna (Scarlett Johansson) enters their lives, it gets ugly. Then there's Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin), who is the embodiment of girls everywhere. She's the girl who is so desperate for a good guy to sweep her off her feet that she clings onto him, waits all weekend for his call and ends up getting played by the dating game.
Gigi’s storyline could have carried the whole movie. There were so many things the producers could have done with her story that they didn't have time to, because there was too much going on at one time. There was not enough depth to any one storyline, and the viewer is left feeling overwhelmed.
The movie focused too much on satisfying the female audience, and doesn't really celebrate the idea of being single and happy. It's still an enjoyable movie, since it tries to take some of the pressure off women and show men what they do wrong as well. A chick flick, for most women, is a guilty pleasure that we indulge in year after year. For two hours it will tell us what to do, how to feel, what to wear, how to please our man, and how to make ourselves stand out.
It's an escape from our own reality and a dive into a fantasy land of hot men and perfect bodies. We look for a heroine we can identify with, and if we can't identify with her we pride ourselves for being smarter, saner and better-rounded than her.
We identify with chick flicks because we've all had those moments where something happens to the leading characters that we laugh at and think, "that's soooo true!"
He's Just Not That Into You hits on the point that many women tend to over analyze and scrutinize every single detail. And most often than not, we come to the conclusion that it's our fault.
We've all been burned – and to see it on screen makes the humiliation a little bit more livable and somewhat humorous.
Yet, it’s not the only reason we keep going back for more. The unrealistic nature of chick flicks often leaves us hungry for a relationship that can't exist in real life, and to satisfy our hunger we go back for seconds, thirds and fourths. At the end of the day, no matter how cheesy or clichéd chick flicks are, we'll still go to them because it's a chance to get together with our girlfriends and inadvertently laugh at ourselves.
Picture: REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni (UNITED STATES)