He’s Just Not That Into You
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The Story
Based on a best-selling 2004 self-help book and featuring an all-star cast, the movie is actually a collection of loosely connected stories about likable 20- and 30-somethings struggling to find, maintain, and leave honest relationships.
Romantic Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin) receives it as a gift when bartender Alex (Justin Long) unlocks for her all of the ways in which guys are really saying they’re not interested in you. Janine (Jennifer Connelly) and Ben (Bradley Cooper) find their marriage tested by Ben’s attraction to an eager younger woman (Scarlett Johansson), while Beth (Jennifer Anniston) and Neil (Ben Affleck) find their 7-year relationship suddenly tested by his longstanding commitment to never get married.
Content Issues
Wow, there’s a lot of PG-13 swearing in this movie, including the use of Jesus’ name for cursing along with about 12 dozen s-words. There’s also a pre-sex scene in which Scarlett Johansson’s character is explicitly groped onscreen in her underwear (right before the groper has sex with another character seen in her underwear on his lap). In addition, Drew Barrymore’s character works for a gay newspaper, and we see somewhat explicit ads for gay massage parlors.
Worldview Talking Points
All of the characters in “Just Not That Into You” seem to share a modern secular view of love, sex, and marriage. In our Planet Wisdom review for students, we suggested they would describe as “normal” this path to marriage: attraction, sex, love, trial-commitment, and then marriage-commitment (optional).
For comparison, even in our modern world, the biblically-mandated path is much different: attraction, marriage commitment, sacrificial love and respect, then sex.
With that understanding, the self-help book and the movie do offer a helpful idea: Women need to get real about what the men they’re interested in are really thinking and stop torturing themselves into believing he cares more deeply for them than he has communicated.
The following questions might spur some conversation with your student on issues of relationships, love, sex, and marriage.
- Have you noticed that girls sometimes obsess over guys who are just not interested in them? Why do you think girls, especially, tend to do that?
- Why do you think some guys lie to women about being interested in them even though they really aren’t?
- How does our culture’s modern approach to dating and sex make this whole thing so much worse, emotionally?
- What can you do to guard your emotions from getting out of control when you’re interested in someone of the opposite sex?
- As Christians, we try to obey the Bible’s teaching about attraction, sexual contact, love, and marriage. How would you describe what limits God asks us to place on ourselves in those areas?
- Were the people in this movie following any limits for themselves in terms of emotional involvement, sexual contact, or marriage? What would you say were their “rules” for rights and wrong in relationships?
- Which view of dating, sex, and marriage is closest to how most of your friends look at it?
- How would you expect the choice to have sex outside of marriage (or outside of any real commitment) to impact a relationship in the long run? Do you think people will tend to be happier or sadder or about the same? Do you think the relationships will tend to last longer or not as long?
- The movie is all about people trying to find the right person for them. What would you say are the qualities you should be looking for in the opposite sex?
- What are the qualities you should be developing to become a good husband or wife?
- What would you say is the point of dating for you right now, if there is any point?
Comments
marklee on Sep 08, 2009 said...
I like it, although I don’t like to see such but this was a little different.
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gail robinson on Feb 13, 2009 said...
This movie is the epitomy of our world’s misconceptions about relationships. The most wonderful thing is to be able to connect with another human being on a spiritual level- trust, security, common goals, serving our creator with someone else who is deeply committed to God’s will for their life.
Parties, bars, nonChristian opinions that take a world view distract from the truth, why we are here and what our purpose is. Sex and feelings of acceptance in that way are short lived and leave us empty and confused. I continue to teach my teenage boy and hope that God will open his ears and heart to His divine plan for his life.
Gail Robinson