I Love You, Man: A Singletude Review

It's official! I have a crush! Since it arrived from Netflix, I've been in deep like with I Love You, Man. The bromance of the century is as spit-out-your-Sprite funny as the likes of Wedding Crashers and Knocked Up, but the themes it addresses through dialogue so achingly real it feels like a hammer to the funny bone elevate this flick several cuts above. So why am I still withholding affection? Because while the movie skewers matrimania, it still demonizes singles.

Meet Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd), a straight-laced, dependable, ambitious yet sensitive real estate agent in touch with his feminine side. Now meet Zooey Rice (Rashida Jones), sweet, attractive, easygoing co-owner of a retail boutique. The two live in a beautiful house in the suburbs of LA, and Peter has just proposed. They have it all, which usually signals the end of the movie. Not in this case.

See, Peter is missing something--friends. Oh, he has co-workers and acquaintances, even fencing buddies, but no one close enough to stand up for him at his wedding. After he overhears Zooey's BFFs critiquing his social skills, he has an epiphany: "I gotta get some f****** friends!" he vows. From that point on, he becomes a man on a mission to cleverly exploit every parallel to contemporary dating cliches. In the process, he endures misguided "set-ups" (one of which includes possibly the best projectile vomiting scene in cinematic history), discovers that men online lie about their age, and agonizes over how soon to call for that first "man date." The expected hilarity ensues, not just because Peter isn't actually romancing these guys but because it hits home that much of the same hope, anxiety, frustration, and excitement that we associate with dating applies to courting a new friend, as well.

Now enter Sydney Fife (Jason Segel), a womanizing, Cheeto-munching, bar-brawling, air guitar-riffing man's man. Here the movie takes a detour to Fight Club Lite as Sydney bonds with Peter, teaching him to speak Guy (a language he flubs often and spectacularly), obey the rules of the brotherhood, and grow a pair. It's all good, and Peter is feeling the brotherly love until his fiancee fears that their relationship is threatening to become a menage a trois.

Because this is, after all, a Hollywood comedy, alter egos Peter and Sydney must each know something the other needs to learn in order to grow and change. Peter, obviously, needs friends. Director John Hamburg has decided that Sydney needs a girlfriend. Or maybe not a girlfriend yet--mercifully, the set-up that Peter and Zooey force on him doesn't work out--but the maturity and interpersonal skills necessary to land one. Therein lies the reason for my love-hate relationship with I Love You, Man.

What the movie does right is present a positive model for a balanced relationship that is not overly couplecentric. Peter and Zooey love each other and enjoy spending time together, but, by the end, they also have fulfilling lives apart with their own friends and career interests. The message that marital partners can't be each other's "everything," that they need platonic friends outside the relationship, is so enlightened and exceptional in the entertainment world that singles with singletude can't help but fall hard for this film.

On the other hand, as much fun and heart as Sydney brings to this story, he's still a caricature of the aging bachelor who refuses to grow up while all his friends are settling down. In one troubling scene, he phones everyone he knows to make weekend plans but is rejected by one after the other. Turns out his friends have wives and children who top their priority lists. Ok, Mr. Hamburg, we get it. When push comes to shove, family trumps friends. Fine. But then you pull out the heavyweights, the three Bs, and leave Sydney looking bummed, bored, and bereft. This is a guy who supposedly has a successful investment business, a collection of high-end guitars he rocks out on, a dog he's devoted to, and friends he hangs with a few times a week. Yet the one day everyone is busy, he's presented as a pathetic no-life who can't find a way to amuse himself on his own. Then there's Zooey's token single friend, who is, of course, a whiny, desperate Plain Jane (the cool, sexy one is married) and a mini-lesson toward the end about respecting the privacy of interactions within the sanctum of the relationship. These elements combine to proclaim a message that matrimaniacs are losers, but singles are losers, too, that to strike a successful balance, one should find a happy, healthy relationship or at least accept that relationships make the world go round. I'm down with the first half of that thesis but not the second.

In fantasyland, Sydney teaches Peter what he needs to learn without ever succumbing to the vices of stereotypical bachelorhood. But then there wouldn't be a conflict, and as all wannabe screenwriters know, a script without conflict is like a platinum wedding without a bridezilla. Or something. Anyway, it doesn't sell. Though I can't commit my whole heart to I Love You, Man, as the only movie in recent memory to call out matrimaniacs and lampoon intensive coupling, it still has me pretty infatuated.




How important do you think it is for a couple to maintain separate friendships outside their relationship? What can couples do to balance time together and time apart? How do you think bachelors are usually portrayed in Hollywood? Is the Hollywood version of the bachelor at all representative of the single men you know? If you've seen I Love You, Man, what are your thoughts on the movie? Do you think it has a positive or a negative message about singles in general and single men in particular? What does it say to you about matrimania/intensive coupling/enmeshed or codependent relationships? By the end of the movie, do you think Peter and Zooey provide a healthy model for couples or not? Can you recommend any other movies that tackle matrimania?


Fun Link of the Day


Do you have a question for Clever Elsie about some aspect of the single life? Have an unpublished rant or rave about singlehood? Write in, and you just might see your question in a "Singletude Q&A" or your rant or rave in a "Singletude Sound-off"! Singletude makes every effort to republish submissions in their original form but reserves the right to edit your submission for length and clarity.

Director of Seeking Happily Ever After Seeks Single Women for Book

Single? Female? Over 26? (Or 26 for the past five years now? ;) Don't worry; we'll use the honor system.) Want to make your voice heard?

If so, head on over to this questionnaire for single women from Michelle Cove, director of the forthcoming documentary film Seeking Happily Ever After. The questionnaire, which consists of just three short- (and sweet) answer questions, will be used to help Cove write a companion book, which she describes as "a feel-great guide to seeking your own happily-ever-after." It "will address the issues/concerns of being a single woman today that go beyond 'landing a husband,'" Cove says.

Seeking Happily Ever After doesn't have a release date yet, but Singletude is eagerly awaiting it. The trailer has already made a splash at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, where it was voted the Top-rated Trailer. Through interviews with familiar faces like Leslie Talbot (Singular Existence) and Jerusha Stewart (The Single Girl's Manifesta) and ordinary single gals over 30, the filmmakers ask why women are staying single in such unprecedented numbers and conclude that they can't be pigeonholed as either trailblazing feminists or desperate biological clock watchers. In a three-minute feature on the making of the film, Cove muses about the myth of the life lived "happily ever after" and how it can be reinterpreted by women creating their own happy endings. As she says in her bio, "The goal of this film is to challenge women to stop thinking about happily-ever-after in terms of princes and picket fences and get them to start thinking about what happiness looks like now for them as individuals--and how to get it."

In a world in which Sonia Sotomayor has replaced Cinderella as the role model for women, a documentary like this is poised to speak to a generation of females at just the right moment. Singletude can't wait for the reaction!


What are your thoughts on the Seeking Happily Ever After trailer? What does living "happily ever after" mean to you? Has that meaning changed since you were younger? What are some aspects of the single life that you would like to see the media address?


Fun Link of the Day






Do you have a question for Clever Elsie about some aspect of the single life? Have a rant or rave about singlehood? Write in, and you just might see your question in a Singletude Q&A or your rant or rave in a Singletude Sound-off!

He's Just Not That Into You: A Singletude Review

I'm putting today's planned post about single homeowning on hold because the cinematic version of Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo's bestseller, He's Just Not That Into You, debuted this past weekend. Since the book's title became a rallying cry for countless singles, I know some of you will be lining up to pay homage to its truisms about boys behaving badly and the women who love them. So before you open your wallet and part with the equivalent of three Starbucks runs for the privilege of crushing someone else's cold popcorn kernels into the seat of your pants as the teenage boy behind you generously massages your back with swift, sure, repetitive kicks, I thought I'd put myself in the hot seat and possibly spare you the trouble.

As you may have inferred from previous statements such as "I hate Greg Behrendt," I really don't like Greg Behrendt. I didn't like the simplistic, one-size-fits-all philosophy he espoused in his book, so I didn't think I'd like the movie either. Well, the movie may not have been this year's Love, Actually, but as your standard rainy day romantic comedy, it wasn't half bad, and, to my surprise, I didn't have to give it an automatic thumbs down for towing the Behrendt line. If anything, the movie disputes his theory or at least leaves room for the messier elements of life that complicate relationships.

He's Just Not That Into You employs a star-studded ensemble as a selling point, and the acting is expectedly solid, but the Dickensian web of relationships is more convoluted than clever. I found myself wishing that the writers had condensed the book's talking points into just two or three arcs instead of creating a new character to illustrate each one. As a result, the characters fail to take on lives of their own and have about as much color and dimension as black-and-white sketches accompanying Behrendt's anecdotes. There's Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin), the neurotic, pink phone clutching embarrassment to single women everywhere who manages to make every mistake in the dating book but can't imagine why guys don't call her back; Connor (Kevin Connolly), the object of her obsession, who just isn't that into her; Greg Behr--err, Alex (Justin Long), who just isn't that into anyone and makes it his mission to educate Gigi in the secret code of men; sexpot Anna (Scarlett Johansson), who throws herself at a married man, as all voluptuous blondes do; the philandering married man (Bradley Cooper), who of course won't leave his predictably uptight wife (Jennifer Connelly); and several other characters cobbled together from folk wisdom about the evils of cohabitation and the Internet.

The exception in this tribute to rules is Beth, a breath of circulating, if not fresh, air played with real poignancy by Jennifer Aniston, who must know a thing or two about the role of the long-suffering girlfriend coming to terms with her boyfriend's (Ben Affleck) contempt for the institution of marriage. Hers is the only story that pushes the boundaries of the cliche, though it ultimately does a 180 and ends up reinforcing them.

Interspersed with the vignettes are mockumentary-style interviews with sad examples of the female sex, who bolster the book's unstated but unavoidable blame-the-victim thesis. There are some genuinely funny lines here as well as throughout the rest of the movie, which is entertaining enough to rent the DVD and throw a pajama party. But there are also agonizing moments of heartbreak and humiliation that will hit close to home for singles who have been "on the market" for awhile without offering any insight or solution worth a $10 ticket.

And aren't insight and solutions what fans are expecting of the movie based on their favorite self-help book? For them, He's Just Not That Into You will surely disappoint and confuse for the same reasons that it surprised and pleased me: it doesn't actually support the book's prescription for dating success.

See, Behrendt would like single women to believe that men are all-or-nothing roboclones programmed to respond to the opposite sex in one of two ways--either flick them off like dung flies or fly them to the moon on a diamond-encrusted jet. No in between. And, according to Behrendt, this should be the case whether a couple has just met or been together for 30 years. Any man who hesitates to ask a woman out, call her back, commit to a relationship, or marry her just isn't into her and never will be. His philosophy of love leaves no room for baggage, shyness, insecurity, immaturity, or differences in romantic style, much less for the feelings that can blossom out of friendship over time. Plus, by absolving both parties of any blame, he does a disservice to both men and women. The message is that, whether you're a man who rejects women repeatedly and ruthlessly or a woman who's been repeatedly and ruthlessly rejected, you couldn't possibly have any problems except that you haven't found the right one.

Without throwing out any spoilers, let's just say that the movie contradicts this premise, and that, in my opinion, is its saving grace. It shows us relationships, in all their glorious sloppiness, breaking the rules. Friendships grow slowly into something deeper, men rethink their feelings and learn to commit over time, women make the first move and sometimes do get the guy. Interwoven with these anti-lessons are examples that support the book, too, but they succeed because they apply to superficial relationships, and that's where Behrendt's rules are of value. Your mother could've told you--and probably did--that most married men won't leave their wives for a fling. And, given the multiple avenues of communication available in our global society, if a guy doesn't contact you after the first date, he doesn't want a second helping of your wit and charm. Behrendt's problem is that he tries to force those broad-based guidelines to work in specific situations in which complex interactions of personal history, psychological needs, personality dynamics, and value systems determine the course of a relationship. The movie trumps the book because it acknowledges that a catchphrase like "he's just not that into you" isn't sufficient to explain those interactions.

But what I like best about this movie isn't just that it contradicts its source material; it affirms the single life in a way the book never did. In the end, no less than three characters choose to be alone for awhile, and that choice is presented not with pity but with acceptance and encouragement. As the camera pans through a final montage, the concluding voiceover reminds us that sometimes the happy ending is you on your own, making a new life for yourself. I'm into that!

He's Just Not That Into You won't win any awards, but it's cute, true to life, and surprisingly singles-friendly. If you're in the mood to waste some money this weekend, watch with my blessing.


Fun Link of the Day


(Read it and cringe.)



Do you have a question for Clever Elsie about some aspect of the single life? Have a rant or rave about singlehood? Write in, and you just might see your question in a Singletude Q&A or your rant or rave in a Singletude Sound-off!