Communicative Strategies in “He’s Just Not That After You” Movie Review

He’s Just Not That After You is a 2009 movie by Ken Kwapis, which describes different aspects of human relations though interwoven stories. The movie presents different communication techniques and styles. Effective communication makes that basis of effective relations and thus help reach success in different spheres of life. Nine main characters in the movie communicate with each other and present different communicative roles and models. The movie gives the chance to explore different relationship models and peculiarities of intergender communication.

Gigi, the main character of the movie, has difficulties in recognizing signals she gets from her male partners. These difficulties results in miscommunication and wrong expectations, which finally result in disappointment. The movie illustrates how childhood perceptions affected Gigi’s concepts when she grew up. In the childhood she believed boys expressed their nice feelings by comparing her smell with the dog’s poop. This funny and innocent childhood idea contributed to her concepts about relations when she finally grew up. Her belief that  “if a guy acts like a total jerk that means he likes you” made her misinterpret messages from her partners. “Of course he likes you. He’s only behaving as though he doesn’t like you because that’s just how boys are”  is another type of message, which results in wrong perceptions and further wrong life choices. These gender relations illustrate certain gender stereotypes and gender roles, peculiar to the contemporary society. Women struggle to build relationships and are ready to put effort and bear different kinds of negative reactions from their partners. Beth  spends years waiting for her partner Neil to marry her. Neil in his turn is not going to take responsibilities and get married. Despite the fact he enjoys long-term relationship, he  does not feel dedicated enough to  support his choice with decision to get married. Janine is deceived by her husband Ben, who is not able to resist Anna’s charm. Gigi and Mary intensively search for partners, using all possible methods. Most of women, presented in the movie feel more dependent on men and relationship. They are ready to tolerate different kinds of mistreatment in the attempts to build relationships with men, who usually don’t really appreciate them. Men in the movie are presented like those, who make final choice in the relationship. Women stay in constant chase for the relationship, while men tend to demonstrate disrespect, lie and manipulate. The situation becomes even worse, since most of women accept such gender roles and agree to follow games, initiated by men. Most of women in the movie have hopes to build or restore happy relationship. At the same time, most of them fail to recognize evident signals, which demonstrate how men treat them in reality. Most of women  do not possess enough communicative competence to give right interpretation to words and actions. Women in the movie are too worried about not having relationships. These strong desire prevents them from attempts to start  a sincere conversation  with their partners. They often turn to “mind reading” in the attempts to justify their partners and save fragile illusion of happiness. Men in the movie present another type of rhetoric and communicative patterns. They also turn to ambiguity, aiming to escape serious talks. They also treat lies and deception as a normal part of relationships.  

Gigi does not show enough communicative competence. In general, communicative competence can be described as “the knowledge of effective and appropriate communication patterns and the ability to use and adapt that knowledge in various contexts” (Cooley and Roach, 1984, p. 25). Gigi forgave Don time after time despite the fact he broke up with her every Friday in order to have his weekend free.  Gigi interpreted a lot of messages from men wrongly. When men did not call her, he found justifications for their actions, in order not to confess true meaning of their actions and words. Gigi’s reactions to other people’s behavior illustrate at she does not possess a cognitive competence, which makes an important component of the communicative competence. Cognitive competence includes knowing how to act and right interpretations of actions, performed by other people (Hargie 2011).  Cognitive competence can be developed through observation and understanding of right behavioral models. There is a chance Gigi did not have the opportunity to witness right behavioral models in her childhood. In general, communicative competence consists of several skills, which include: ability to    express ideas clearly, ethical communication, recognizing communicative goals and choosing right communicative instruments in order to reach them,  recognizing and managing possible misunderstand conflict management. (Burgoon 2000). Gigi and her other female characters from the movie fail a lot of skills, listed above. Communication can take different forms. All people think of verbal communication fist, when they think of communication. Verbal communication consists of uttered and written utterances (Burgoon 2000). At the same time, in Gigi’s situation behavior and even silence of her partners also became also became a form of demonstration and thus became a communicative mean.

Gigi often turns to stereotypical thinking and uses generalizations when judging about motifs and behaviors of other people. Mind reading is one of communication and relationship traps, which prevent Gigi from providing an adequate reaction to the situation. Mind reading assumes making judgements about motifs, which influence behaviors of other people (Burgoon 2000). Not possessing full vision of the situation, Gigi justifies her partners, by giving explanations to their arrogant and indifferent behaviors. Making attempts to explain actions, performed by other people without possessing enough information on the topic results in wrong perceptions and wrong reactions to the situation.  Gigi makes assumptions about Connor’s good attitude to her after he orders them more drinks. He assumptions become even stronger, when he hugs her.  “He initiated the hug and said it was nice to meeting me.” At the same time, his actions do not have meaning, Gigi attributes to them. In some context hug can signify romantic feelings, but in other context it can be a gesture of friendly attitude. “Mind reading” makes Gigi believe that Connor has romantic feelings for her. Same happens to Alex, whom Gigi quickly starts treating like a boyfriend, despite the fact he does not give her a reason to make such conclusions.

Alex, becomes a kind of “love coach” for Gigi, becomes an eye-opener for her, disclosing true intentions men put into their words and actions.  He explains simple logics, men pursue in their communication with women. Gigi  comes to realization she constantly misreads her partners’ actions and comments, believing they have romantic interest in her. Alex gives a frank account of strategies, men use to stop communication with women they are not interested in. Gigi finds out that her strategy of “mind reading”  made her believe in fake signals, men did not give her in reality. Gigi cannot stop misreading signals even during her communication with Alex. He interprets his friendly attitude as romantic feelings.  Despite the fact the happy ending of the movie gives hope that some cases of mind reading can be successful, it sill shows basic communication mistakes, which create different kinds of problems in the relationships.

Works Cited

Cooley, Ralph E. and Roach, Deborah A. “A Conceptual Framework,” in Competence in Communication: A Multidisciplinary Approach, ed. Robert N. Bostrom. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1984.

Hargie, Owen Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice, London: Routledge, 2011. 

He’s Just Not That into You, Ken Kwapis, 2009. 

Burgoon, Judee K,. Berger, Charles R.   Waldron, Vincent R. “Mindfulness and Interpersonal Communication,” Journal of Social Issues56, no. 1, 2000.

The terms offer and acceptance. (2016, May 17). Retrieved from

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"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016.

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freeessays.club (2016) The terms offer and acceptance [Online].
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"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

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"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]
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