Aubrey MaloneLove, Rosie (12)
The British have the formula for feel-good rom-com movies down to a fine art. It goes something like this:
1. Hugh Grant is too old now so let’s go for someone younger to do the ‘handsome hunk with the cut glass accent and lots of awkward looks and stuttering’ thing instead (in this case, Sam Claflin).
2. Make sure there are weddings (not necessarily four) and funerals (at least one).
3. Have the hero and heroine falling in and out of love and/or friendship with each other, if not other people, and/or not realising their true feelings for each other until the aforementioned other people steal their partner and/or partners.
4. Make the heroine’s slightly less beautiful ‘best friend with the big heart’ get most of the film’s funniest lines.
5. Include the mandatory dash for a train or plane (where the hero or heroine has to stop the love of their life from marrying someone else) close to the end for dramatic effect.
The present offering manages to serve up such ingredients with the polish we’ve come to expect from these kinds of things, all the way from Bridget Jones through Notting Hill and beyond.
Fluff
This one is based on the Cecilia Ahern novel Where Rainbows End so expect lots of fluff about realising one’s dreams.
Lily Collins plays Rosie, our token English rose. She’s been friends with Alex (Claflin) since childhood. When they grow up they decide to go to college in the US together. Their lives take different directions when Lily becomes pregnant by another man, but they keep in touch across the dividing lines of continents as the years speed by.
Will they finally get a chance to express their love for each other?
In this kind of film they have to, no matter how long it takes. (Here it’s not quite as long as in Ahern’s novel.)
The film is very watchable. It’s glossy and thoroughly professional. Collins has wonderfully expressive eyes.
They’re slightly crossed, which makes them look even more beautiful, and ideal for close-ups, of which we get many. When there are tears in them it’s time to reach for the tissues to dry our own ones. (Or not, as the case may be.)
Love, Rosie is played out with slick contrivance. It’s the ideal date movie, though I would have thought its certification of 12+ a bit young for some scenes in the film.