The Vow. Rated PG (mild themes, coarse language, nudity and sexual references). 104 minutes. Directed by Michael Sucsy. Screenplay by Jason Katims, Abby Kohn, Marc Silverstein and Michael Sucsy.
Verdict: Perfect Valentine’s fare. Just remember to keep your seat-belt fastened at all times.
Inspired by events in the life of Kim and Krickitt Carpenter, The Vow is a romantic drama that is as solid as a rock. And almost as interesting as one.
It all starts promisingly enough as we are introduced to two love birds – Paige (Rachel McAdams) and Leo (Channing Tatum, pictured) who leave a cinema and drive off into the wintery night. Moments later, after Paige takes off her seat-belt to have sex with Leo in the car, a truck slams into the back of their randomly parked vehicle, sending her flying head-first through the windscreen.
As an Insurance Commission of WA commercial about the importance of wearing a seat-belt, it might have all ended there successfully enough. But no. There’s another 100 infuriating minutes as poor old Leo desperately tries to remind his now-amnesic wife of how wonderful their pre-accident life together was. Standing in his way are Paige’s selfish parents Bill (Sam Neill) and Rita (Jessica Lange), and her smarmy lawyer ex-boyfriend Jeremy (Scott Speedman, of Underworld fame), who each prefer the Paige they remembered, manipulated and controlled in the years before she met the free-spirited Leo.
To their unending credit, Ms McAdams (Mean Girls, Sherlock Holmes) and Mr Tatum (Dear John) invest everything they have into the laboured, cliché-ridden script – and their devotion to the tasks at hand (and their charming and engaging onscreen chemistry) works entirely in the film’s favour. Ms Lange (Frances, Crimes of the Heart, American Horror Story) takes all of a few minutes in her brief scene in the garden to give the cast an acting master-class, while Mr Neill gives the impression of never feeling entirely comfortable with the fact that he’s in a scene at all.
Even though Mr Sucsy (Grey Gardens) directs with a fine sense of respectable intimacy, nothing can mask the film’s fatal flaw – which comes when Paige earnestly (and somewhat self-defeatingly) declares that she hopes, one day, to love someone as much as Leo loves her. The temptation to scream out of sheer frustration might be all too difficult to resist.
This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group
The film may be entirely unafraid of predictability, but it’s sweet, shiny and well acted; essentially it delivers exactly what it says on the box. It also helps that Tatum and McAdams are good here as well, but nothing that they haven’t already done before. Good review. Give mine a look when you get the chance.
ReplyDeleteHey Dan. Thanks for dropping by and commenting. Agree re the leads – they are the best thing about it. And like you write in your review, there are a plethora of missed opportunities. Will be visiting your blog more frequently now that I know it exists. Thanks. http://dtmmr.wordpress.com/
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