Gigi, played by Ginnifer Goodwin, Beth (Jennifer Aniston) and Janine (Jennifer Connelly) work in the same office in He’s Just Not That Into You.

Warner Bros. / Darren Michaels

The complexity of modern romance is sliced, diced and mashed together in the awkwardly titled He’s Just Not That Into You. The film revolves around several people in their 20s and 30s who haven’t yet figured out the complexities of love nor how to forge a lasting romantic bond.

He’s Just Not That Into You is based on the self-improvement book written by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo who came up with the idea from a line of dialogue they wrote for the TV series Sex and the City.

This is the Crash of romantic comedies, a multi-character film that skitters from relationship subplot to relationship subplot, much like that Academy Award-winning movie. As in Crash, some of its subplots and characters are only loosely connected, although their actions will have a bearing on the lives of many of the others. All the characters share a common romantic dilemma, though — that one person in each relationship is more enamored with the other person than vice versa.

The dilemma for the audience, however, is that just about all the characters also share a common thread — they’re annoying and whiny. Despite a neatly wrapped-up ending that offers some surprisingly sunny results, people may not find the self-help advice they’re seeking here. Rather, they may just want to flee the theater in frustration.

That goes especially for the film’s central character, Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin), a desperately needy and clueless woman who doesn’t know when a man is merely stringing her along. She seems frighteningly naïve and scarily predatory. In Gigi’s mind, she can turn a casual date with a man over a pleasant dinner into the first big step on a lifetime together. When she waits for him to call and he does not, it turns into a hand-wringing crisis. But we know that he never intends to call her back because “he’s just not that into her.”

The differences between men and women are highlighted in the film’s funny opening sequence in which we see how, from a very young age and then all through their lives, girls are encouraged by their mothers and girlfriends to believe that boys who show no interest in them really, really are interested. This sets up a lifelong series of romantic traumas as they refuse to face the ugly truth.

Conor (Kevin Connolly), the latest man in a long line to have attracted Gigi’s puppyish interest, is really interested in Anna (Scarlett Johansson), who is not as interested in Conor as she is in advancing her singing career. Anna thinks she may have found the key to doing just that when she wins the interest of a music promoter named Ben (Bradley Cooper) whom she meets by accident. The interest is mutual, but he’s married to Janine (Jennifer Connelly). But Janine takes not as much interest in her marriage as she does in the Baltimore townhouse they’re renovating and in collecting evidence that Ben has been smoking in secret despite his vows that he has given up cigarettes as a concession to her antismoking campaign.

Gigi and Janine work in the same office as Beth (Jennifer Aniston), who has lived with Neil (Ben Affleck) for seven years and is getting antsy to marry him, although he protests forcefully that he sees no need to walk down the aisle. Aniston plays it as though she were always on the verge of tears.

“Antsy” is the operative force in He’s Just Not That Into You as the characters grow increasingly frustrated with each other and their relationships. The increasingly pathetic Gigi continues her misadventures, but begins seeking advice from Alex (Justin Long), the manager of a popular Baltimore restaurant-bar who happens to be the roommate of Conor who is enamored of Anna who is attracted to Ben who is married to Janine who … well, you get the picture.

On the sidelines is Mary (Drew Barrymore, whose company produced the film) in the small role of a newspaper editor who is a friend of Conor. Mary is convinced that meeting people in pickup spots is old fashioned and instead looks for 21st-century romantic connections on the Internet, guided by a trio of gay coworkers who act as a sort of Greek chorus to offer advice.

When Gigi, the basket case, begins using the worldly Alex as a sounding board, calling him at all hours for advice about her latest dates, and he patiently tries to set her straight without screeching at her and hanging up, you know He’s Just Not That Into You is deep into Fantasyland.

Director Ken Kwapis, who deftly handled four subplots in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, here is saddled with a group of unlikable characters who are more interested in themselves than in each other. Johansson has never looked as ravishing on screen as she does as Anna. Yet this wannabe singer seems as much interested in Ben for his ability to get her a gig as she is in seeing her future with him, tempting him into adultery to boot.

Kwapis gets comedy mileage, though, from a series of vignettes that are occasionally inserted into the film and are set up like “man-in-the-street” interviews. The highlight is the funny give-and-take comments from a pair of African-American women discussing how they were dumped without realizing what was happening.

**1/2He’s Just Not That Into You

Starring: Ginnifer Goodwin, Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Connelly, Justin Long, Scarlett Johansson, Ben Affleck, Bradley Cooper, Drew Barrymore, Kevin Connolly, Kris Kristofferson.

Rated: PG-13, contains sexual situations, adult themes, brief profanity.

mjanuson@projo.com