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Love is a many splendid thing. Love lifts us up where we belong. All you need is love!
from the movie Moulin Rouge
A car
accident puts Paige (McAdams) in a coma, and when she wakes up with
severe memory loss, her husband Leo (Tatum) works to win her heart
again.
Review by Romy Shiller
Director: Michael Sucsy
Writers: Jason Katims, Abby Kohn
Stars: Rachel McAdams, Channing Tatum and Sam Neill
(maybe some spoilers, but who cares?)
Yuck.
Sorry to those of you that liked it but this is one of the worst films I
have ever seen. This film is described as a chick-flick and last time I
checked, I was a chick. The concept is very nice – a husband lets his
wife ‘be’ after a brain trauma, which leaves her with no memory of him.
He is very much in love with her and their old life together. So, the
ideas here are intriguing but the execution of them, poor.
Basically, the story: Paige
and Leo are a blissfully married young Chicago couple. As they’re
driving around town one snowy night a truck rear-ends them. Paige gets
thrown through the windshield, suffering a severe head injury... Paige, upon waking from medically induced sleep, doesn’t recognize her husband.
The
plot includes a controlling father, an evil ex and a cat. Paige does
not remember the fight she had with her parents, why she left her old
fiancée or why she is an artist and not a lawyer.
I was thinking that many people would focus on the ideas here and that would be enough – I mean an entire demographic likes the Twilight films (REVIEW) but this film just sucks on so many more levels. Sure, I have a problem with the Twilight films, but The Vow is so bad, it is not even comparable to anything.
There
is also the expectation for female identification – in this respect I
want to punch someone, not in a good way. Many people imagine that there
is a standard for female behavior – I do not. It isn’t that this film
conforms to a recognized ‘norm,’ it does not even feel cliché.
Rachel McAdams is still riding on the wave of The Notebook. While The Vow is a romantic drama, the similarities end there. Channing Tatum is associated with the romantic drama Dear John. Both actors have a niche but in this case, they also have extremely bad judgment.
The
chemistry between the two characters is highly questionable. Because
the story relies on their bond, it is flawed from the get-go. Critic
Lisa Schwarzbaum from Entertainment Weekly says, The
two stars look dewy and glossy and unexceptional, bound together less
by chemistry than by the ministrations of a hard-working costume
designer.
Rachel and Channing had not met before they were cast. Rachel asked the director, “How do I know? What if we don’t have chemistry?”
Michael Sucsy said, “Listen,
for this particular story, if you have chemistry, it’s going to work.
And, if you don’t have chemistry, it’s still going to work.
You
didn’t have to edit it together and put a bunch of violins over
everything to make it look like they had chemistry. They had chemistry.
It’s totally real.
Sure.
A review in The Guardian says that Channing Tatum is terribly miscast…
The story is based on actual events, which I am sure are very interesting. Michael Sucsy said, “I
just thought it sounded like an incredible premise for a film. The fact
that two people are already in love when the movie starts, and then
they’re ripped apart, and then they have to find a way back to each
other. That really touched me.”
However critic Richard Roeper says, The Vow is inspired by a true and wonderful story, but that doesn’t make the fictionalized version any less ridiculous.
The
writing is choppy, unrealistic, does not flow, and is simply flawed.
Editing might have broken up a rhythm, or tried to salvage the writing –
who knows? It is half-baked and full of holes, villains written in
bold type and, even though it’s based on a true story,an air of
concocted banality.
Michael Sucsy directed the television film Grey Gardens (2009), which I liked… The Vow
was messy, like the director had a hard time making choices. If he
thought that his actors had chemistry and if the focus was on the story,
the technical side suffered. The direction was misguided.
I kept
looking at the Toronto locations to see if I recognized them. I used to
live in Toronto. When you start looking at locations instead of the
film, well, um, there’s a problem.
Critic Joseph Proimakis says, panhgyrikh
teleth oxi anagnwrishs toy megaleioy ths dynamhs ths agaphs, bebaia,
alla ths epibebaiwshs ths yperoxhs ths gkomenas poy probalei ton eayto
ths apanw sta lagoydisia matakia ths prwtagwnistria. What he said.
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