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Based on the bestselling book spawned by an episode of Sex and the City, He’s Just Not That Into You is an instructional video that turns into an inspirational talk towards the end because hope is the big concept these days and you have to give it to the core audience. It proffers warnings against over-interpreting signals and rationalizing jerky behavior, then it suddenly turns around and says, “Maybe you’re the exception to the rule.” I speak from personal and empirical evidence when I say that in relationships, there’s a thin line between hope and dementia.

Nine individuals in varying friend and couple permutations act out different relationship issues. Ginnifer Goodwin is the girl whose romance desperation borders on psychosis—you want to root for her and you want to slap her. Drew Barrymore, the movie’s producer, has assigned herself a smaller (barely there) role. I don’t know how I got it into my head that Drew Barrymore directed this movie—she didn’t, but I suspect she’d be good at it.

Jennifer Aniston’s romantic history is known to 98% of the world’s population, and I’m thinking she should start playing hateful characters because right now her role in the movies is to give the audience someone good-looking, rich, famous, and with zero body fat to feel sorry for.

Scarlett Johansson is frequently cast as the predatory third party. So the audience won’t hate her because she’s beautiful, her character usually ends up alone (or dead) and searching for self-fulfillment or whatever. Woody Allen fans owe her for his late career revival.

Jennifer Connelly, eat something. Remember when she was voluptuous (Dark City, Mulholland Falls)? She’s still lovely, but she looks like she’s deprived of something, and it could be cheeseburgers.

Photo: Jennifer Connelly in Dark City.

Ben Affleck returns to acting after his stunning (as in, “Aiieee, he has talent!”) directorial debut. He was not sorely missed. Go direct another movie. Bradley Cooper’s tan is distracting. Affleck’s character, who lives on a boat, is not nearly as tan as Cooper, whose character stays indoors. Kevin Connolly from Entourage plays a real estate agent who cashes in on one of the great truths of our time: Gay people love real estate. Oddly enough the most attractive male in the cast is Justin Long, either because he has the funny lines or those Mac ads have gotten to me or my headache medication is causing weird side effects.

Irate critics have noted that the women in this movie are too good for the men they’re paired with. Critics, welcome to real life.