So I’m watching that movie, and it’s a great showcase of fucked up human romantic relationships. I’ve been inspired to share my opinions on the decisions the women make and the actions that they take. Obviously there are big time spoilers here if you haven’t seen it.
1. Beth & Neil
They have been together for seven years. They live together, love each other, and don’t want to be with anyone else. But Neil doesn’t want to get married. He doesn’t believe in the institution of marriage as an entity and thinks that people who get married do so out of obligation and end up unhappy. They do it because that is what they’re supposed to do.
Clearly, since I want to get married more than almost anything else in my life, I disagree. But I know that people have that opinion, and that’s fine. But they should really only be with people who share that opinion. If a person like Neil is with a person like Beth, who wants to get married, it doesn’t work out – Beth will always be unhappy and Neil will never understand why she is unhappy.
At this point in the film, Beth has broken up with Neil because of the marriage issue, stating that it’s bullshit that he won’t marry her. I agree. If he loves her so much that he doesn’t want to be with anyone else ever (something he states in the film), then he should just marry her. Nothing about his life would fundamentally change. They already live together so they share at least some financial responsibilities and a life together. Sure, if they got married, there would be more shared financial responsibility, she might would take his last name, and it would be harder to break up if he ever changed his mind about his commitment to her. But the big life changes that typically come with marriage have already happened, and he still wants to be with her. I completely believe that he doesn’t believe in marriage (in other words, I don’t think he’s just saying that as an avoidance tactic), but if he really loves this girl and marriage won’t really change anything in the first place, he should just do it if that’s what it takes to keep her and make her happy. Maybe even marrying Beth, the person he loves most in the world, will change his opinions about marriage itself.
Later in the movie Beth returns to Neil by saying that him and his love are enough for her, and she can take marriage completely off the table. As soon as she does, Neil realizes that he can only be happy if Beth is happy, so he asks her to marry him. So he did exactly what I would have told him he should do. Ha!
2. Ben & Janine & Anna
Ben & Janine are married and renovating their home. In their first scene together, Janine mentions having a baby to which Ben responds that he doesn’t think they’re at that place yet but will be soon. I didn’t buy their relationship in the first place, but that also kind of sealed the deal. Again, this is an important, fundamental disagreement. A family is something she is really striving for while Ben isn’t even really considering it yet, even if he may one day. She also asks him if he’s been smoking because he’s kind of jumpy because…
He’s been talking to Anna on the phone. He met Anna at the grocery store and was very attracted to her (she’s played by Scarlett Johannsen after all…). For a little while Ben tries to avoid being around her at all, knowing that trouble could only come from it, and she is disappointed because she feels an instant connection and attraction to him. But then he shows up to her yoga class. And then he watches her swim naked. They state that they can just be friends, both knowing that they probably can’t. And then they have sex. And then Ben tells Janine and they break up.
And at this moment she’s explaining to one of her friends why this was her fault. She forced him into marriage (by basically saying that if he didn’t marry her, she would break up with him). She’s not fun anymore. They never have sex. Etc. I also brought up the smoking thing because, later, Janine finds a pack of cigarettes and a makeshift ashtray full of stubs and ashes and is convinced that Ben is smoking again, even though he’s not.
I think she’s partially right. She should not have forced him into marrying her the way that she did. It just made him resentful. If he didn’t want to be with her forever then he shouldn’t have married her. If she doesn’t trust him – and then he gives her a legitimate reason not to trust him – they shouldn’t be married. These are fundamental reasons why they should not be together. The other things she mentioned are fixable – having fun, not having sex, etc. These things can be fixed. The other things can’t be.
As far as Anna’s part in this situation – I am not justifying Ben having an affair. It’s still wrong that he slept with another woman while he was married. But I blame him for that, not her. It may have been naive of her to believe him (he has sex with his wife in his office while she’s in the closet after they’ve reconsidered and decided to work on their marriage) but she thought she could fall in love with him. To her the risk was worth it. He, on the other hand, should have waited to be with her until he was sure he was going to break things off with his wife. Especially since he didn’t end up doing that and hurt both women in the process. (He also was smoking behind her back and consistently lying about it.)
In the end, Ben is fucked over with his wife saying goodbye to him with packed luggage, a carton of cigarettes, and a note requesting a divorce and Anna telling him to never call her again. That’s what he gets for trying to have his cake and eat it too, I say.
3. Anna and Conor
Conor thinks Anna is the one for him even though their relationship has been platonic for the most part. They’ve had sex before and a romantic relationship may have been implied at one point, but they’re pretty much just friends. He is convinced otherwise (playing the more traditional feminine role) while she is off making time with Ben. Once Ben has completely fucked over Anna, however, Conor shows up and says that they call each other sweetie, they talk until they fall asleep at night, etc. – they act the way a normal couple does, but they’re not a couple. So Anna agrees to a commitment with him though later that night it is implied that perhaps she still isn’t happy.
I think this is a classic situation where the girl wants to be with the one person who isn’t committed to her and isn’t satisfied with the one person who is fully committed to her. Neither of these situations is her fault. What is her fault are the actions she takes. She should have realized that real commitment from Ben would mean waiting to sleep with her until he was separated from his wife and that if she doesn’t love Conor then she shouldn’t commit to him.
Luckily when Conor proposes moving in, she admits these feelings to him, and they revert back to friendship.
4. Alex & Gigi
Gigi knows less about the opposite sex than pretty much all of the women. She goes on a date with Conor and then obsesses about him not calling her (the reason being that he’s so obsessed with Anna). She runs into Alex, his friend, at the bar and they begin a dialogue in which he explains the actions between men and women to her. If the guy wanted to see her again, he would make it happen. From that point forward every time she goes out with a guy, she calls Alex to ask his assessment of the situation and what action she should take next. They build a friendship and he even attempts to set her up, though the friend of his doesn’t show up. To Gigi – and the audience – it seems that Alex is interested in Gigi. He looks forward to their conversations, he answers the phone when he’s hooking up with another girl, perhaps the friend that didn’t show was imaginary, etc. In any normal romantic comedy, this would be indeed what happened. But when she comes on to him based on nothing more than these signs, he rejects her.
Gigi moves on and finds out that the friend Alex was going to set her up with is real. They go on a date and have a nice time. The roles are reversed – Alex is waiting for Gigi to call and is an emotional wreck because of it, but she’s moving on to others. Once he realizes he really cares for her, he shows up at her door, saying that she is finally an exception to all of these dating rules. At least she is for him.
I personally think this relationship between Alex and Gigi is the most bogus one in the film, even though it’s the focus of it – Gigi appears to essentially be the main character and narrates the beginning and the end. But it’s what every girl thinks is supposed to happen…and then it does…even though the movie is trying to show that all of these ideas about relationships are retarded. I think they shouldn’t have ended up together after all, even though it made for a nice ending and a corny line.
5. Conor ends up with Mary, who we don’t see too much of throughout the film because all of her other romantic interests are through texting or the Internet.
The movie is right about one important thing – we are taught really stupid things about the way we’re supposed to interact with those we’re attracted to from a very early age. In the movie, Gigi kept pointing out how insensitive Alex was when he was telling her that the guy wasn’t interested in her, but that wasn’t him being insensitive – it was him being honest with her and trying to help her by telling her the way it really was rather than doing what all of her other friends were doing and giving her false hope. My point is that women are so used to being around women and knowing how women think and feel that when they’re with a guy, they try to use what they’ve learned when it just doesn’t work. They operate differently so if you continue to try to form a relationship with him through the tactics women think work, you’re going to fail. Listen to what men tell you because they obviously are going to know men better than you do. And, besides, in the movie, Alex was right. If a guy wants to see you, he’ll make it happen. You have to accept that if he’s not calling you, he doesn’t want to see you and don’t make excuses for him.
Anyway, these are things I like to think about, so this movie gave me some fuel. It’s a pretty good movie, though I think it’s definitely one for the girls. I can think of a few guys who would find it interesting, however…
The last line of the film sums up how I feel about love and this quest in finding it:
“Or maybe the happy ending is this, knowing after all the unreturned phone calls, broken-hearts, through the blunders and misread signals, through all the pain and embarrassment you never gave up hope.”
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