Supporting Actress Blogathon: Ginnifer Goodwin in He's Just Not That Into You

I've wanted to talk about He's Just Not That Into You ever since catching it on DVD (its cinema release was Valentines Day) and so Stinkylulu's annual Supporting Actress Blogathon emerges as the perfect platform to discuss my favourite part about it, the charming Ginnifer Goodwin. If you're hung up on category placement, and view the film as led by narrator and probable screen-time queen Ginnifer, then tough luck. I'm usually quick to accept prominent players as "leading" roles but, as with Inglourious Basterds, He's Just Not That Into You is an obvious ensemble piece, featuring a "Who's Who?" of Hollywood's gossip magazine elite, and thus I class every cast member as supporting the other.

The film's titular lament is a brazen statement, and the entire film seems geared towards warning women of not being too obvious about their need for attention and romance, even as its mere existence as a marketable romantic comedy appears to undermine what its saying, and as it inevitably confirms to women that a happy ending does exist.

Ginnifer Goodwin's Gigi is a hopeless romantic, painfully unsure of how to handle potential love interests, way too rapturous at the idea of having one in the first place, pre-occupied with the stages of development in a relationship and already desperate for the white picket fence and two-point-four children. In meeting Alex (Justin Long) she finds an inside source of information on men and how to tell whether they really like you or not, gladly absorbing his information on body language and flirting, eager to learn and become better at the dating game. Goodwin's early pedanticism is very endearing, and as a representation of the over-thought "What if the one gets away?" approach to romance she is successfully hapless, without coming across as an airhead bimbo, or anything less than remarkably intelligent.

Gigi is familiar with protocol, constantly flirting even in her and Alex's first platonic exchanges, maintaining eye contact and nodding her head slightly to show she's taking in his information, digesting it, and doesn't even think to let him go as a romantic option until her bungled attempt at a seduction ends in heavy admonishment. Goodwin navigates the negative connotations of her character's desire for testosterone, and is refreshingly aware of Gigi's emotional openness and the problems that it poses, promoting it as positive and worthwhile even though it leaves her exposed to hurt. She is responsible for the film's ultimate reverence of romance, indulgent of dating and how it's undeniably fun, even though 95% of it ends in the disappointment of not meeting the person you want to spend the rest of your life with.

In the final scene, she (as with the audience) can see why Alex is standing at her door long before he declares that he "can't stop thinking about her", and yet she almost can't believe it when he tells her. Gigi is so ingrained in the process of hunting down men that she can barely acknowledge obtaining one so easily, and with little-to-no effort, that her reaction registers as uncertain, even fearful. Goodwin's face bursts into life with triumph, but one reckons that again, like the audience, Gigi learns virtually nothing out of her experience, and that she will likely work just as hard and make the same sweet mistakes that she always did as she embarks on her first relationship with a guy just as much into her as she is to him.

Olivia Thirlby in The Wackness (2008)

This is part of StinkyLulu's now-legendary Supporting Actress Blogathon. Enjoy.

Josh Peck was the kid that got pushed overboard (and don't pretend you didn't cheer when it happened) in Mean Creek. He was a big lad, but The Wackness, a story of predictably very wacky goings-on, sees him as Luke, a fairly thin drug-pusher in an early-90's era hip-hop-obsessed New York. Very often films with such malevolent and apparently braindead characters follow a similar formula, which usually involves said characters achieving relativity and forming some sort of reluctant mini-cult by the end of it. The Wackness has a lot of that "How can you be timid and so blunt?" relativity but understands its own kind by making each character appear dependent upon being liked and appreciated.

Olivia Thirlby serves as the love interest to Josh Peck's drug-ravaged and numb-brained non-entity, and one questions, initially, how she could be intrigued by someone as dull, socially-awkward and utterly different to her as Luke essentially is. Thirlby, who featured somewhat in last year's mega-hit Juno, was the title character's best friend, trusted to throw her two cents in but keep the boat afloat. In The Wackness, Thirlby's Stephanie, placid, easy, eager as she may first seem, rocks several of our male characters' boats but waltzes off into the distance a la Natalie Portman in Closer; troubled, even regretful, but forever and preferably a figure of desire.

When a man loves you, you know. A lot of men are set up so that naturally such gestures of honesty feel painful and often desperate -- at least in my experience. Thirlby reacts to Luke's declaration of love with such disdain. Not because she's disgusted by him, or love, or commitment, but rather fiercely devoted to a generation and social movement that wanted to shrug off commitment, and assertive with the knowledge that she is so much more evolved as a person than he is. At that age you do tend to pick the easier option, and so Thirlby effectively acts as the heartbreaking wake-up call to a very confused and unconventional protagonist.

What's great about the film, and her performance, is that you can imagine this story being told from other people's perspectives with the same vigour: through the eyes of Ben Kingsley's stoner, crisis-ridden doctor, and through Thirlby's teenage bombshell. She identifies with us by putting Luke as the centre of her curiosity, then dispenses with him in the intolerable way we might adopt if he wasn't the centre of The Wackness' cinematic braindead world. This braindead world is often worth exploring, but her performance, a fluctuating charming one, feels like an unexpected dose of CPR; to someone that doesn't want to be resucitated and something that doesn't need resucitating.