He's Just Not That Into You Analysis

 

He's Just Not That Into You is a 2009 rom-com that features an ensemble cast featuring Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Bradley Cooper and Scarlet Johansson. The opening shot establishes the location of the opening scene, a park for children. As the camera pans across we see kids running around and having fun. We see a young boy walk up to a girl who is playing in the sand and push her over. The girl is shown through high-angle shots to make her seem more vulnerable and weak compared to the young boy. The shot/reverse shot technique is used to show the boy insulting the girl and then the girls reaction before the boy runs away. The female narrator that accompanies this scene starts off by stating "a girl will never forget the first boy she likes." The film has already subverted audience expectations, making the scene seem as if it will show 2 romantic leads falling in love at a young age (through the narration) but instead showing the boy insulting and upsetting the girl. 2 genre conventions are displayed here, first the supposed love interests disliking each other at the start of the film, and second the unlucky girl who the audience sympathises with. Background music and the general sound of children playing makes up the ambient sound of the scene, which works to set a light tone for the location as would be expected for a childrens play park on a sunny day.

The young girl runs to her mother crying and explaining what happened. When the mother tells the young girl that the boy only did those things because he likes her, the narrator says "there it is, there's the beginning of our problem." This lets the audience know that was not just a throwaway line and must hold some importance to the plot of the film. The realism of the scene is slightly broken at this point, where it looks like the characters on screen can hear the narrator. The narrator asks "do you know what this means?" and the young girl (who is in close-up) shakes her head as if responding to the narrator. There was nothing shown on screen that the girl could have been answering so it can only be assumed she is responding to the non-digetic question that only the audience are supposed to hear. At this point, a lengthy montage begins, and the background music is now more upbeat and faster to match the increased pace of the shots. The montage shows many different scenes featuring women of various ages, ethnicity and cultures all giving different excuses and explanations to other women as to why a man hasn't called them. This is meant to show the similarity of women worldwide and draw in the audience to the idea and theme the film is trying to work with. At the end of the montage the narrator comments on this and asks rhetorically why women do this to each other and mentions "the one obvious truth that is staring everyone in the face..." At this the titles open, as if finishing the narrators sentence.