I haven’t read The Social Animal by David Brooks, which I gather is about the ways in which a couple’s life illustrates the insights of behavioral psychology and the idea of emotional intelligence.

But I have seen the new Kiorastami movie, Certified Copy with Juliet Binoche, which is an interesting and probably more imaginative take on similar territory: male and female stereotypes and models. It begins with two slightly unconventional and attractively independent characters who engage with each other and seem to avoid the stereotypes of masculine and feminine behavior; then they slide, very realistically, into behaving true to form/stereotype/archetype, wanting the things men and women supposedly and traditionally want. Biology turns out to be destiny. It gets a little corny towards the end, because stereotype is corny, but it has a terrific first half.

Along similar lines, I recently saw the old Truffaut movie Soft Skin which you cannot get on DVD. In the end it is also about male and female stereotypes, very well done with a fatalistic sense of doom hanging over it. It gets a little melodramatic in principle, but in practice it hangs together perfectly, organically whole and realistic.