Eight years ago, in the same Valentine's day weekend, "50 first dates" hit the theaters and made memory loss into a romantic comedy. "The Vow" takes another form of memory loss but the same guy-forgetting effect to a romantic comedy setup. Paige (Rachel McAdams) loses the past five years of her memories; the past five years where he met and married her husband Leo (Channing Tatum). Then tada, the plot then circles back to the same need: he must make her fall in love with him again.
Memory loss makes for good Valentine's day fodder because it can explore the concept of soul mates. If the girl loses the memory of the entire relationship, would she do it over with the same guy or would she forge new lives? After all, couples destined to be together should survive a memory loss.
Away from the main plot engine, "The Vow" is a good romantic drama; it is given to very little of the usual confectioneries and cheesiness that comes with Valentine's day pushes. McAdams expertly portrays the stranger while Tatum expertly does the love-sick but often kicked puppy (or bulldog). Paige and Leo are art-school city "hipsters"; them not being upper middle class, it provides some fresher and more interesting dynamics in the story telling.
As a sideline, I think Leo probably has two really dumb and uncomfortable lines in the movies. The first being something about tingling hands of Thom Yorke's fingers and marriage. The second being when asked about if recording studio is a dying form because people can record on their computers, he goes on a long bubbly enthusiastic blabber about slapbacks and something else.
Overall, "The Vow" makes for good Valentine's day movie but I think it also makes for good drama. Comparing it to the lame romantic comedies that have come to define this week of year at the movies, at least you won't be spend the entire length of the movie rolling your eyes and shaking your head.
Memory loss makes for good Valentine's day fodder because it can explore the concept of soul mates. If the girl loses the memory of the entire relationship, would she do it over with the same guy or would she forge new lives? After all, couples destined to be together should survive a memory loss.
Away from the main plot engine, "The Vow" is a good romantic drama; it is given to very little of the usual confectioneries and cheesiness that comes with Valentine's day pushes. McAdams expertly portrays the stranger while Tatum expertly does the love-sick but often kicked puppy (or bulldog). Paige and Leo are art-school city "hipsters"; them not being upper middle class, it provides some fresher and more interesting dynamics in the story telling.
As a sideline, I think Leo probably has two really dumb and uncomfortable lines in the movies. The first being something about tingling hands of Thom Yorke's fingers and marriage. The second being when asked about if recording studio is a dying form because people can record on their computers, he goes on a long bubbly enthusiastic blabber about slapbacks and something else.
Overall, "The Vow" makes for good Valentine's day movie but I think it also makes for good drama. Comparing it to the lame romantic comedies that have come to define this week of year at the movies, at least you won't be spend the entire length of the movie rolling your eyes and shaking your head.