Hear ye, hear ye, all twenty-something year-old men who refuse to believe that they are jerks, but have actually been jerking around women for the majority of their adolescent and adult existence: you aren't half the man Scott Pilgrim is.

I surely wish girls weren't wandering around fantasizing about men financially providing for their Brazillian blow dry receiving asses (note: I'm aware that this is a procedure for hair on head, not hair on ass), dreaming of their "princess wedding",  and collagen injecting their lips in order to attain perceived attractiveness. They should be pining after their Scott Pilgrim. 

In the case that you aren't aware of the plot, here's the four sentence version: Scott Pilgrim is a 23 year-old loser who sees a girl in a dream, then sees her in real life, then finally introduces himself to her at a party. He lightly cheats on his 17 year-old high school girlfriend with his dream girl, Ramona. He then finds out that he must fight and defeat Ramona's seven evil exes in order to formally date her. He takes on the challenge and succeeds. 

Now before you think this is too much of a Rapunzel type story in which a woman must be saved by a man, let me assure you, it's nothing of the sort. Many times, moreso in the comic than the movie, Ramona involves herself in the battles, helping Scott win. In many cases, she totally bails and seems to have no interest in the fight. Also, she has moments of appearing to not care if Scott defeats these evil exes or not. This departs from the standard distressed woe-is-me girl in a tower, expecting to be saved and doing nothing to help herself down the path to freedom.

Scott Pilgrim's imaginary play land of video game-esque triumphs, life one-ups, and point gathering is quite analogous to real life relationships. In the comic book, he learns that he's been a dick to all women in his life. He regrets this. He realizes that his fuzzy memories of his behavior aren't exactly reality. He learns that sometimes the person he wronged is actually right about who he is and in what way his behavior was horriffic. Boys, take note. Unfortunately this isn't quiet as obvious in the movie as it is in the book, but it's still there, lightly pitter pattering its way through the ending.

The second wailing analogy, crying out to be noticed, is that of baggage. Ramona's seven evil exes are quite literally emotinal baggage personified. In this modern era of love and romance, you're lucky to find someone that will stick around for more than six weeks, let alone deal with all your baggage you've accumulated for all thoes partial, half-finished, emotionally torn up relationships of yore. Scott Pilgrim know that once he's found the girl of his dreams, he has no choice but to address these things. They're literally going to fight him and try to kill him every day.  An evil ex trying to open his skull up with a katana isn't so different than the real life equivalent of my low self-esteem ruining precious romance-time with my future husband. My low self-esteem is a clear byproduct  being a product of my general mental sensitivity and years of shit relationships. He's not without his baggage as well, but we battle it more quietly because I'm such a whiner about my own issues. Yet he battles those demons and some day, with time, he (and I) will defeat them.

To further this point, my future husband says this movie is, "Twilight for boys."

Oh and the film is super flashy,  quirky, and finally gives Michael Cera a script with joke set ups that allow him to use his mopey-clueless-sweet guy character in an entertaining and non-annoying way.

The author, Brian Lee O'Malley, must have figured out that , he was a dick, everybody has baggage, and maybe his Scott Pilgrim series was his apology to womankind and admission that baggage and past should be forgiven.  Hopefully as we all ascend into adulthood we learn what Scott and Brian did, anything or anyone worth having is worth working for.