Love Happens never ges off the ground

By Kait Chura     9/24/09 7:00pm

Someone, somewhere, is terrible at naming movies. If you wanted to see a movie about love, you would think Love Happens would be for you. Nope.Now, if you are looking for a movie about coping with death, then maybe this film is more up your alley. Love Happens is sure to attract groups of giddy females on a girls' night out or cute couples holding hands, all expecting a romantic comedy, but most will find themselves shaking their heads, slowly trying to wrap their minds around the train wreck they just finished watching. A better title for this movie would have been Death Clouds Your Life, But Flowers Can Help. I'm certainly not a professional, so when I can come up with a better title, you know there's something wrong.

But it wasn't just that the title was misleading: After seeing Aaron Eckhart in No Reservations and Jennifer Aniston in Along Came Polly, it seemed clear that the mixture of the two of them would create wonderful comedic chemistry. Alas, their love, fictional and forced, was not meant to be.

Eckhart plays bestselling author Burke Ryan, whose book A-Okay focuses on helping grieving people cope with the loss of a loved one. While at a conference in Seattle to promote his book, he notices the hotel florist writing mysterious words under picture frames around the hotel. This flower lady, Aniston's Eloise, fakes deafness to avoid speaking to him when he tries to flirt. Eloise eventually gives in to Ryan's charm, only to find turmoil, as he is still coping with the death of his own wife and, ironically, is the only person not getting help from his own book.

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In the end, it seems that the overall "love story" thrown into the plot is complete rubbish and something just added to get a female lead, seeing as how there was zero chemistry between Aniston and Eckhart. Maybe it will be in the deleted scenes on the DVD? Who knows? There is no "zip," or romantic connection, between the two leads. They are polar opposites, and their romance never stands a chance.

Still, it can be said that Eckhart made something out of a horrible role. On paper his character might have seemed like a good idea, but on the screen it was definitely not, boring and staid as he is. Yet Eckhart proved his acting chops and, somehow, kept the audience from leaving.

On the other hand, Aniston, a talent in her own right, needs to keep waiting for the right romantic comedy. It keeps with her recent theme of choosing movies that seem funny when they are not (see: The Break-Up or Rumor Has It...), but even in a film about death, her comedic knack shows through where it can. She will find her movie eventually, but right now maybe "Friends" re-runs are a better option to provide comedic entertainment.

Individually, these two actors work just fine. But when together in this movie, the fireworks are doused in water and never make it off the ground. That goes for the other cast members, as well. John Carroll Lynch, who plays Eckhart's right hand man and manager, reminds the audience of a less funny Jonah Hill. He is obviously the comic relief, yet he is unable to give the performance he tries to provide.

Whoever titled this movie Love Happens must have not watched it. Without the romantic chemistry between Aniston and Eckhart, this movie turns into a story about death, which is not the feel-good film a movie-goer usually pays to see.

As for me, I'll be waiting for my paychecks for renaming the movie. Address them to Wiess College, please.

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