The Vow Review
Not as painful as I thought it was going to be.
I have to be careful when I review movies that are patently chick flicks. If I were to watch a technical film on Linux coding for release engineering and then said I found the film boring and confusing I would be a complete moron. This is why I don’t use my stars/black hole rating system on most kids films. I have to take into account the intended audience, and in this case the audience is definitely women and possibly their happy or browbeaten male partners.
This movie was absolutely written with that audience in mind and makes no apologies for it. That being said, in spite of my Y chromosome I found myself pulled into the story to a degree I didn’t think would be likely based on the subject matter. This film definitely had it’s issues, which I will get into shortly, but I can’t say I left the theater feeling like I had wasted my time and money.
The story is of a young, artistic couple who are supposedly very much in love (to be honest, the romance from early in the film seemed a little forced) who get into a car accident (by the way, the accident is pretty graphic. If seeing someone catapulted through a windshield in slow motion bothers you maybe close your eyes for a minute when you see the snowplow coming). Leo (Channing Tatum-the Eagle, Haywire, Step Up, She’s the Man), the husband, recovers quickly but his wife Paige (Rachel McAdams-Wedding Crashers, Midnight in Paris, Mean Girls) has brain trauma and is put into a medically induced coma. She comes out of it but has forgotten the last five years of her life, including everything about her marriage, dropping out of law school to go to art school, or her estrangement with her parents. She goes from being a sophisticated, talented urban artist to a vapid suburban cheerleader (and ironically plays the role much more naturally and believably, which may or may not say a lot about Rachel McAdams. She is super hot in this, by the way). She thinks she is still headed to law school and engaged to her two dimensional ex fiance Jeremy (Scott Speedman-Underworld, Felicity, the Strangers). Her rich right wing parents (Sam Neill-the Hunt For Red October, Jurassic Park, the Piano and Jessica Lange-Rob Roy, Cape Fear, Tootsie) , whom she has not spoken to in years, surface and attempt to take control of her life. Her husband is a complete stranger and she no longer remember why she stopped talking to her parents, so she goes back to her superficial suburban life.
At this point the movie kind of fragments into four different stories (not surprising, since the credits list four different writers). There is her and Leo’s attempt to help her regain her memories. There is her controlling fathers attempt to regain control over her. There is her struggle to deal with the loss of five years of her life and the changes that have occurred, as well as deal with her ex fiance and all her old friends. And finally there is Leo’s attempt to get her to fall in love all over again while struggling to keep his recording studio open. I will say that the movie, which seemed kind of all over the place and disjointed for the first 2/3rds of the film, actually tightened up a lot and became more interesting in the last 40 minutes or so.
The stars. Interesting story concept, probably because it was inspired by true events. One star. Decent if somewhat uninspired acting from most of the cast. One star. The portions where Paige is struggling to reconcile her missing years with the life she thought she was leading were pretty interesting. One star. In spite of the obvious influence of multiple writers with differing ideas as to where the story should be going, the director managed to keep the story together with decent editing and pacing. One star. The supporting characters were the big positive surprise, developing into interesting and valuable plot devices towards the end of the film. One star. The ending, while pretty much what you would expect from a romance film, was both messier and more interesting than I would have expected. One star. Generally a movie I enjoyed that I expected to pan. One star. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. The fragmentary influence of multiple writers was pretty apparent. One black hole. 
The scenes involving Paige and Leo from prior to the accident seemed forced, with super sweet sugar coating used to hide a lack of chemistry. (Sugar Smacks image courtesy of the Vintage T Shirts) Honestly, Leo reminiscing wistfully about their romance seemed more real. One black hole. A pointless and annoying voice over by Channing Tatum was used to crowbar in a fairly prosaic message about moments of impact that attempted to give a deeper meaning but were fairly worthless. One black hole. Overall, while entertaining the emotional direction seemed really heavy handed, especially given the easy to manipulate subject material. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
So a total of three stars, a shockingly good score based on what I expected here. Should you see it? Probably not, if you are a guy and single (unless you are OK with looking like a creepy loner in the theater and/or planning to write a review about it). Date movie? Absolutely, 100% yes. This is one of those perfect date movies, where your date will eat up all the “love lasts eternal” messages while you will find the struggle to fix Paige’s brain interesting enough to keep you entertained. Just be sure to talk about how cool the love message is and not go into a lecture on assorted types of brain trauma.
Thanks again for reading. Not a lot left to see, which unfortunately means I might be stuck watching Mysterious Island 2 tonight. Ugh. I’m headed to Las Vegas for work (believe it or not, but I don’t make my money writing this blog) and won’t be back until late Tuesday, so I will probably write up something tonight and schedule it for tomorrow. Let Jason do some work over the next couple days. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. If you want to send something directly feel free to email me at [email protected].
Dave
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