reviewed by YanJie (guest writer), CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS
Valentine’s Day is a romantic comedy that follows the tradition of films such as Love Actually and He’s Just Not That Into You by splitting the narrative among several couples/relationships. All the different couples are usually linked in some way and their stories generally share a common theme. For this movie, the dominant theme is about how each character deals with Valentine’s Day. The movie follows the lives of several couples and a few single people as they traverse through the emotional highs and lows of their February 14th.
The mistake that a lot of people are going to make when seeing this movie is that they will be comparing it to Love Actually. Don’t do that because it will only result in your inevitable disappointment. The key to enjoying really bad movies is to go in with really low expectations -– that way, unless the movie is total crap, they are bound to have some redeeming qualities.
The redeeming qualities of this kaleidoscopic rom-com lie in the film’s range of different relationships. I really appreciated that most of these couples are already in a relationship when the movie starts so that I don’t have to sit through two hours of soul mates "discovering each other." Sorry for the extreme cynicism there; it’s just that there are few romantic movies that have completely made me believe in the whole "couple meets, falls in love, encounters an obstacle, makes up, and lives happily ever after" in the span of two hours. So I am somewhat grateful that Valentine’s Day dispenses with all of needless exposition and just plops you right in the middle of a couple at the height of their romance or at the threshold of falling apart. And it is precisely through this ability to forge ahead with the story without any regard for our ignorance of the couple’s history that we catch a true glimpse of real people and real relationship.
So perhaps unsurprisingly, my favorite scenes in the movie are usually the most simple ones –- an old couple exchanging presents on Valentine’s Day or a ditzy neighbor (Taylor Swift) gushing to her neighbor’s mistress (Jennifer Garner) about the awesome gift that her boyfriend got her –- the camera then pan to the gift, a white teddy bear two-third her height and twice her width. And I must admit that as someone who hates Twilight and most Hollywood concoctions for teenagers, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the two Taylors who play high school sweethearts in this movie. They were wacky, mindless eye candy –- but it is their self-mocking awareness of who they are as cultural icons that made their scenes one of the few funny ones in the movie. My favorite one was when Swift gave Lautner his gift after she received the giant teddy bear,
Lautner: You got me my old T-shirt?
Swift: Yes! But I ironed your favorite number onto the back. *holds up T-shirt and we see a giant 13*
Lautner: 13 is your favorite number.
Swift: You don’t like it?!???!!!!! (looks like she’s on the verge of a diva breakdown).
Lautner: *swift look of panic* No! Of course I do.
Swift: *giant and slightly scary smile* Why don’t you try it on now!
Lautner: *looks around the school yard* I’m not comfortable with taking my shirt off in public.
Unfortunately, these scenes of self-mocking are incredibly rare and by the end, the few slices of humorous and real moments have been swapped aside for a non-stop parade of sickening romantic clichés. Most romance movies screw themselves over at the end when they try to wrap up everything into the perfect happily ever afters even when there is no logical consistency to the plot, character, or relationship development. And this flaw is only magnified exponentially in Valentine’s Day as it tries to give all of its 10+ couples the perfect fairy tale ending even though we probably spent less than 10 minutes on them each. Yet somehow, in the span of 24 hours their time and 24 minutes our time, one character manages to have sex with a hot surgeon, finds out that he’s married, humiliates and exposes him in front of his wife, and still discovers by the end of Valentine’s Day her true love, her best friend, has been in front of her eyes the whole time.
It must be Valentine magic.
Or just really, really bad screenwriting.
Perhaps it’s me but by the end, I was definitely getting nauseous from the phony sweetness of it all –- imagine the ending to the LoTR, Return of the King but with countless couples that you don’t care about instead. But at least you’ll be happy to know that each of them lived happily ever after regardless from the husband who just found out that his wife of 50 years cheated on him to the florist who proposed to his girlfriend and got dumped by her on the same day -– everyone lives happily ever.
So my final recommendation is a high MEHHH to people who can stomach a lot of unrealistic bullshit about the state of love. Although some wonderful work by the two Roberts (Julia & Emma), the two Taylors, and a few other actors does make the sugar hangover slightly more bearable. But for people who want to feel something even if they’re watching a romantic comedy, I would just recommend rewatching Love Actually which has that rare balance of sweetness and heartbreak, realism and romance. It combines good acting with even better screen writing and is a masterpiece collection on the joy and tribulation of love.
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9 comments:
So what makes this better than When In Rome? From your review it seems like this movie doesn't even have a central plot.
Are you sure you like romantic comedies? You come off as incredibly cynical lol. Also I vomited a little when you referred to the two Taylors are "cultural icons".
Everyone loves Love Actually, except me. Maybe I need to watch it again and try not to fall asleep this time around.
Great review, btw!
XT - The thing about any great romance book or movie is that it is never about the actual plot, it's always about how the plot furthers the character and relationship development.
And it is through those development and interaction that we fall in love with the characters and story.
So yes, Valentine's Day doesn't actually have a central plot. But there were times in that movie that I did suspend my disbelief and feel with the characters. Granted, those scenes probably made up like 1/5 of the movie but that was at least 1/5 of the movie that I wasn't rolling my eyes at its total sappiness.
Whereas When in Rome never made me believe in its plot, characters, or the characters' love for each other which was why it was a complete waste of time to me.
Valentine's Day also had a lot more clever dialogue/writing than Rome which interprets the "comedy" part of Romantic-Comedy as the hero walking into trees.
Jay - Yea, through the process of writing these reviews, I think i realized that I don't actually like them very much. At most, I've "appreciated" a few of them but rarely do I actually "love" any of them. And quite many of them just make me a little bit nauseous.
But hey, at least I'm willing to watch them.
Well, they are. Even the adults know who they are.
Valery - I actually didn't appreciate Love Actually that much the first time I watched it. But I think the beauty of it lies in its ability to defy expectations. Not everyone ended up happily ever after but that just made the stories of people who did a lot more poignant.
But I think why many people really like it is that it's one of the few romance films that's not a love story but a story above love. And there's a certain truth to its stories that make a lot of people relate to it.
I watched both Love Actually and He's Just Not That Into You. One of my good friends told me that Love Actually was one of his most favorite movies, but it ended up disappointing me quite greatly. The only story that I really did like or thought it was realistic was probably the one with Emma Thompson and her husband was sort of cheating on her. She said one memorable quote in the end, "Yes, but you've also made a fool out of me, and you've made the life I lead foolish, too." There were some parts of He's Not Just That Into You, that was funny. There were a two couples that I liked such as the relationship Aniston and Affleck were in, and the one that Gigi was in. For movies like these, there's just too short of a time for each couple to actually develop a meaningful story for each.
Why does everyone love Forgetting Sarah Marshall? I thought it was really boring...
@YL - I totally agree about the story with Emma Thompson and her husband. But I also really liked a lot of the stories that ended well such as the little British boy and his crush, the tentative relationship between Colin Firth and his housekeeper, the rock-star has-been and his great love...
Even the stories that break your heart such as the one with Keira Knightly illustrates something about love - which for her story is that if you truly love someone, you would want them to be happy even if it isn't with you.
But I also get what you're saying about the disappointment because I definitely didn't appreciate Love Actually when I first saw it partially because all of my girlfriends revere it as some kind of romantic bible. But it has definitely grown on me, especially with repeated viewings of many other inferior films.
As for He's Just Not that Into You, I've never actually seen it. But perhaps I'll like it since I heard it is kind of cynical and apparently, I'm also kind of cynical.
" The key to enjoying really bad movies is to go in with really low expectations -– that way, unless the movie is total crap, they are bound to have some redeeming qualities."
Haha, great advice guys!
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