Gigi is a single girl looking for love, who obsesses over every guy she dates, tearing herself apart when they don’t call. Meanwhile Alex tells her to stop sitting by the phone. Beth wants commitment from her long-term boyfriend Neil, but he’s happy with their unmarried life. Janine isn’t sure she can trust her husband Ben, who definitely can’t trust himself around Anna. Anna can’t decide between him and her reliable old standby Conor, who can’t cope with the fact he can’t have her. Then there’s Mary who is surrounded by supportive guys who all happen to be gay…

Director Ken Kwapis always comes a cropper by ladling on sentiment, as he did in “Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants”. He does the same here where he focuses solely on the failing romances of the characters without bothering to develop the people beyond stereotypes. He doesn’t seem to understand that you have to get to know the players to care about them. That some of them are likeable at all is down to the actors. Matters aren’t helped by the white-on-black inter-titles that underline the issue a particular segment of the film is referring to. Not only does it upset the pacing by stopping the story dead, but it also underestimates the intelligence of the audience. The film is made even more episodic by little vox pops of “real people” (i.e. actors that aren’t well known) giving their opinions on different aspects of dating. It’s the only stroke of innovation in an otherwise generic romantic comedy. It looks bright and shiny thanks to the slick visuals, but you get the sense there’s nothing going on beneath the sheen and that the characters don’t have a life outside the film.

Where the director does really well is in showing the crushing embarrassment of certain situations, whether it’s being turned down flat by someone you make a move on or being set up with someone unsuitable at a wedding. But Kwapis hasn’t quite got the hang of the ensemble film – the transitions between different individuals or groups are graceless, making the interconnections feel contrived rather than natural. Despite the many plot strands you can tell where all the stories are going and there are no surprises come the finale. But even after the ends have been tied, the director feels the need to do a montage of video diary snippets of the main characters in an in-credits epilogue that is neither edifying nor necessary. This just adds to the lengthy running time of a-hundred-and-twenty-nine minutes, without bringing any new ideas to the genre.

Considering the screenplay by Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein is based on a best-selling self-help book by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, it’s perhaps unsurprising that there is a dearth of meaningful narrative. It’s basically about a lot of people dithering when it comes to relationships. The fact that it has an intermittent narrative from Gigi only underlines the absence of plot. It’s one of those devices that is the last resort of the filmmaker who realises their product doesn’t make sense without it.

There are too many characters and the way their relationships are interconnected is clunky. Could so many people in such a small group all be having romantic worries at the same time? The problem with having this many central players is that there isn’t enough time to develop any of them beyond neurotic stereotypes, who all want what they don’t have. The women are all defined by their attitudes to and relationships with men, making them all feel weak and needy. Each one obsesses over her relationships, failing to take in the bigger picture and be thankful for what is going right in their lives. The majority live affluent lifestyles and appear to have jobs they like and friends who love them. Gigi comes across as desperate, Janine is hard and manipulative, Anna is a sexy home-wrecker, Beth isn’t willing to make a stand for what she wants and Mary doesn’t seem to put any effort in. None are sufficiently well-developed to make you empathise with them. To be fair they fare better than the guys. The men are portrayed variously as heartless gits just out for sex, oblivious fools that don’t take their partners’ needs seriously and needy individuals that always want what they can’t have. So it’s hardly surprising there is constant miscommunication between the two groups. But the lack of mutual understanding is too consistent to feel realistic. The dialogue bears this out with everyone seeming to talk in handy sound-bites about the difficulties of their romantic entanglements. It feels like an abridged version of the book.

The ensemble cast struggle to expand their roles beyond stereotypes. Although Ginnifer Goodwin is appealing as Gigi (she has a fresh-faced openness that is attractive), the character’s constant need for reassurance starts to grate after a while and her ditzy neurotic shtick is wearing. As Anna, Scarlett Johansson is pretty and husky-voiced, emphasising her buxom sexuality, making for a cutesy, flirtatious turn. But she never comes across as more than a home-wrecker. Jennifer Connelly is tightly wound and exacting as the high maintenance Janine. So it’s too easy to see why her husband would go looking elsewhere with such a harridan at home. Jennifer Aniston has little in the way of personality as the tense, marriage-obsessed Beth, so isn’t very memorable. Meanwhile Drew Barrymore is a vaguely hippyish fag hag as Mary, doing her usual doe-eyed little-girl-lost acting.

The male cast members get far less screen-time than their female counterparts, which makes a refreshing change from most Hollywood movies. Justin Long gets the best shake of the stick as Alex, the voice of reason and experience. But the part is too expository and he’s too obviously there to provide a male perspective on events and Long can’t overcome this hurdle. Bradley Cooper is warm, fun and personable as Ben, but he’s hard to sympathise with because the character cheats simply because he can. Ben Affleck is far more likeable than normal as Beth’s boyfriend Neil; a warm and amiable but under-developed presence. Kevin Connolly is rather too needy as estate agent Conor, but his reasons for being so are never disclosed. So he feels incomplete as a character. The only players I wanted to see more of were the vox-poppers – especially the woman talking about the ingenuity of her adulterous ex-husbands, before hitting the punch-line beautifully. But overall the acting talent is less than the sum of its parts.

The original music by Cliff Eidelman is so inconsequential it almost isn’t there. It’s the usual bland romantic comedy fare overloaded with redundant motifs full of wistful chimes, woodwinds, warm strings and harps. The odd bout of playful strings and chimes is fine, but there are too many flurries of hopeful flutes and loose acoustic guitars to mean anything. It turns into aural wallpaper you don’t really notice.

“He’s Just Not that Into You” is another generic romantic comedy aimed at women that underestimates its audience. It does so by suggesting every woman needs a man to feel fulfilled. Of course that’s my own cynical viewpoint but I’m sure there are enough diehard romantics out there to validate the producers’ beliefs. I personally found it rather bland thanks to the uninspired direction and sketchy writing. I thought the performances were underdeveloped and underpowered. There’s nothing seriously wrong with the movie, but there’s nothing seriously right with it either, so I couldn’t help but feel indifferent towards it.