[NOTICE: I've changed the review below because, originally, I made a huge mistake and assumed this movie was based on a book by Nicholas Sparks. It has all the trappings of one of his book-adapted movies: same type of story, same actors. But, in fact, it is based on a true story written by the Carpenters. I apologize if you happened to be misled by reading the previous version of this review.]
If you look at my "Movie Reviews" page, you'll see there is a whole category dedicated to Nicholas Sparks book-adapted movies! I'm not sure why I torture myself with those. I loved A Walk to Remember, both the book and the movie. That was my introduction to Nicholas Sparks. Since then, nothing has matched...not even close. Perhaps because of the subject matter and the format of the title and the look of the cover, I thought this movie was based on another of his books. I was made aware that it is not. It's based on a true story by Kim and Krickitt Carpenter, which makes it all the sadder. I sincerely hope their story has a more satisfying ending than this movie.
The Vow (now out on DVD) is actually okay, except for the end. Yeah, it's still a bittersweet, sappy love story. Nothing inherently wrong with that. I like it because the two main characters are actually married, for once, so there isn't that whole extra-marital sex storyline to deal with (though the movie is rated PG-13 and contains partial nudity and minor sexual content). Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams do a beautiful job portraying their characters.
In The Vow, Paige and Leo are deeply in love until a car accident puts Paige in a coma from which she awakes remembering nothing of her life with Leo. In her mind, she's still engaged to another man, still speaks to her parents, has a different set of friends, doesn't live in the city, eats meat, and is still a law student rather than a struggling artist. Her whole life is different than she remembers it, and she does not know, let alone love, the man who's supposed to be her husband. Leo, on the other hand, is so in love that he tries everything to ease her transition back into his life, but the going is extremely rough. Eventually, he realizes that he will have to start from zero again in their relationship, but can Paige fall in love with him again or will her reunion with her former life be too big a chasm to span?
(Minor SPOILERS) Obviously, this is a heartbreakingly sad movie. I'm not saying the end result is sad. I won't completely spoil that for you, if you wish to see it anyway. But the process is difficult to watch. Can you imagine the person you love most in the world suddenly ceasing to know you even exist? There are happy moments, too, redemptive moments, and it was almost enough. But the end just wasn't everything I wanted. Something was missing.
However, The Vow was better than the similar (though fictional) Nicholas Sparks "Romantic Tragedies" I've reviewed on this blog, and ending aside, it was an emotional tearjerker of a romance, which I generally enjoy. Three stars out of five.
Showing posts with label tear-jerker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tear-jerker. Show all posts
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
The Descendants on DVD
I promise I am not on a mission (yet) to watch all the 2012 Oscar Best Picture nominees, as I was last year. Nonetheless, several of them sparked my interest before they were on that list, The Descendants being one of them. It just looked like one of those tear-jerker, heartfelt dramas I occasionally go for. And it was, painfully so.
George Clooney plays a man in the midst of a family crisis as his cheating wife lies dying in a hospital bed while his two daughters seem determined to live destructive lives. Complicating an already hectic week, as he attempts to tell family and friends of his wife's wish to be taken off life support, he must also decide whether or not to sell some virgin Hawaiian land entrusted to his family.
Did I mention it was painful?
I cried so much watching this movie, and at the end, I couldn't decide whether it was a cathartic experience or just unnecessary torture. There's a LOT of heartache. This isn't a movie about a woman who miraculously recovers from a coma. It's about a family saying good-bye to Mom and dealing with anger over her betrayal with another man. But it's also about that family turning from a splintered wreck into a self-comforting unit, and for that alone, it is beautiful.
Emotion, however, isn't the only thing making or breaking this movie. Clooney and the two actresses who play his 10-year-old and 17-year-old are brilliant. And care was taken to make the minor characters multi-dimensional, too. The setting is Hawaii, but as Clooney's character makes clear in the opening lines, that doesn't mean they get to be on a constant vacation from life.
The movie is rated R, mostly for being sporadically peppered with uses of the F-word. I don't normally go for that type of thing, but if any situation might call for it (and I'm not sure any situation does), it's this one. I can take it in this setting, as an adult viewer. I'll even admit, the language provides some much-needed humor in the story, for example when Clooney's character keeps ineffectually telling his daughters to stop the bad language when the audience knows it's right on the tip of his tongue, too.
The Descendants is not a family movie, despite the family message at the end...unless you have this type of family yourself. But it's more hopeful than it could have been, and for that I can give it a higher rating than I might have otherwise. Three stars.
George Clooney plays a man in the midst of a family crisis as his cheating wife lies dying in a hospital bed while his two daughters seem determined to live destructive lives. Complicating an already hectic week, as he attempts to tell family and friends of his wife's wish to be taken off life support, he must also decide whether or not to sell some virgin Hawaiian land entrusted to his family.
Did I mention it was painful?
I cried so much watching this movie, and at the end, I couldn't decide whether it was a cathartic experience or just unnecessary torture. There's a LOT of heartache. This isn't a movie about a woman who miraculously recovers from a coma. It's about a family saying good-bye to Mom and dealing with anger over her betrayal with another man. But it's also about that family turning from a splintered wreck into a self-comforting unit, and for that alone, it is beautiful.
Emotion, however, isn't the only thing making or breaking this movie. Clooney and the two actresses who play his 10-year-old and 17-year-old are brilliant. And care was taken to make the minor characters multi-dimensional, too. The setting is Hawaii, but as Clooney's character makes clear in the opening lines, that doesn't mean they get to be on a constant vacation from life.
The movie is rated R, mostly for being sporadically peppered with uses of the F-word. I don't normally go for that type of thing, but if any situation might call for it (and I'm not sure any situation does), it's this one. I can take it in this setting, as an adult viewer. I'll even admit, the language provides some much-needed humor in the story, for example when Clooney's character keeps ineffectually telling his daughters to stop the bad language when the audience knows it's right on the tip of his tongue, too.
The Descendants is not a family movie, despite the family message at the end...unless you have this type of family yourself. But it's more hopeful than it could have been, and for that I can give it a higher rating than I might have otherwise. Three stars.
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