The non-Maxim Male's POV of dating

Rating: 8/10 (31 August 2009)

Contrary to what popular culture would have you believe, there are many men who believe just as the main character in this movie believes: that there is someone out there for them worth loving and settling down with. This story is told from that perspective.
First, the acting and film-making are both fresh. Obviously the two stars are "who they are" and act accordingly, but they were the right choice for the roles. Zoey D is always quirky but adorable and hard to ignore, and JG-L is his normal teddy bear likable, and that's good here. Because there is never a time in the film when you are supposed to hate these people, and these two are unhatable, so it works.
The style of the film is novel. It's linear in how it presents what you should know at the time, but non-linear in the time-line, showing outcome before setup, or various stages of a relationship in quick succession, using a day counter as a motif over a sketch of changing seasons/weather as a symbolic representation of the mood. Really clever, but not gimmicky in it's cleverness. An entirely different way of playing with time than in Momento, for example, but just as effective.
This isn't a movie where the male lead is a playboy and all his friends sit around degrading women all day. Nor is the male lead a loser simply because he's not a woman's man. Nor does he "get drunk and cheat" or any other cliché.
Because that ISN'T how all men are (player or loser or one drink away from infidelity), and this movie acknowledges that and celebrates it. In fact, nobody in the movie is like that. They are just real people. When happy, they are happy. When mad, they may call someone a nasty name, but they don't mean it. When sad, they are sad. It's what real people do.
And that's what's so good about this movie. Even though the situation isn't as deep as real life might be, it still resonated with the audience, especially the men, who were laughing at all the endearing parts and the true parts, because we've all been there, where the girl we love just doesn't love us back, but we are too blind to realize it and go through life in a happy daze until we crash and burn. It was almost cathartic to realize how many men had been through that same situation, and hopefully the women in the audience took a look around and saw that men are caring, sensitive people inside, despite what Hollywood usually tells them.
Now if only today's filmmakers could learn to pace things a little better. The only reason this movie doesn't get a 10 is because there were 5-10 minutes throughout the film that were slow/redundant, and if the editing were tighter, the film would have been more powerful. It's not as drawn out as an Apatow movie like Funny People or Knocked Up, with entire sections of the movie that should be excised, but it still could have been tighter.
Maybe it deserves a 9, considering what gets 10's on IMDb, but I think 8 is pretty damn good.