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Relationships are never easy to navigate. Each one comes complete with two different people who have different needs and different goals—not to mention different communication styles. In his best-selling self-help book, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, actor/comedian/talk show host Steve Harvey seeks to help women communicate (and perhaps manipulate) in order to reach their relationship goals. Think Like a Man, a romantic comedy based on Harvey’s book, follows four couples as the women use Harvey’s advice to try to get what they want out of their relationships.
Single mom Candace (Regina Hall) finds herself dating mama’s boy Michael (Terrence J) and his mother (Jenifer Lewis). Successful businesswoman Lauren (Taraji P. Henson) tries to build a relationship with struggling chef Dom (Michael Ealy). Mya institutes the 90-Day Rule in order to prevent herself from becoming just another one-night stand for Zeke (Romany Malco). And Kristen (Gabrielle Union) tries to get her commitment-phobic boyfriend, Jeremy (Jerry Ferrara), to grow up and settle down.
Everything seems to be working in the women’s favor until the men figure out what’s been going on and decide to fight back.
Think Like a Man employs the usual relationship clichés, along with a parade of stereotypes, to tell a quartet of typical rom-com tales. But while the stories may be predictable, they’re told with an easy-going sense of humor that makes it all lightly entertaining.
At times, though, the film feels more like a marketing campaign—or a self-help seminar—than a romantic comedy. The book cover appears on screen so often—and the characters spend so much time quoting the book and singing its praises—that you might wonder if you’ve somehow walked into the wrong theater and stumbled upon a kind of feature-length infomercial. Harvey himself even pops up from time to time, disrupting the story to present his tips and tricks to the audience in cheesy video segments.
The advice, meanwhile, is a bit troubling, seemingly suggesting that relationships should be a battlefield of mind games and manipulation—and that the ultimate goal of any relationship is to make the other person fulfill your own personal needs and wants. Concepts like “No man is perfect” are glossed over in favor of more popular concepts—like how to con a man into getting the right job or conforming to your own personal style. On the other side, it seems to tell men how to lie and smooth-talk their way into a woman’s bed.
Of course, in true rom-com style, everything eventually works out for these hopeful couples—and everyone’s a better person in the end. And, along the way, the film is good for some lighthearted (though sometimes overacted) comedy that’s often funny because it’s all too true. Still, considering that this clichéd romantic comedy was inspired by a book of relationship advice (a book that the film seems to be trying very hard to shill), Think Like a Man isn’t nearly as thoughtful or mature as it should be.
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