Of all the genres that Hollywood audiences have grown familiar with, the romantic comedy is perhaps the most formulaic and predictable. Despite its unsuccessful dip into the territory of tragedy, Love Happens doesn’t depart from the rulebook of rom-coms. The audience gets it all: the bumpy start, the confident hero who is hiding a painful secret, the romance against-all-odds, the revelation and even the “slow clap” of a sympathetic audience. However, the lens of Brandon Camp’s film is not really focused on romance. The movie spends a significant amount of time tackling the idea that pain can be marketed like any other product. While the revelation is welcome, it does little for the dramatic intensity of the film. The characters become promoters of an idea and never manage to evolve beyond uni-dimensionality.
Boy Meets Girl
Burke Ryan (Aaron Eckhart) is a self-help coach whose best-selling book, inspired by the death of his wife in a car crash, has gained him an impressive popularity around the country. When he arrives in Seattle for one of his sold-out seminars, he is on the verge of a multimedia deal and seems to be in control of his destiny and of his grieving process. However, it doesn’t take the viewer too long to realize that the smile plastered on his face is just a selling point. The man who teaches others how to avoid “the rearview mirror” and to go on with their lives is not able to take his own advice. And nowhere is this reality more apparent than in Seattle, the home town of Burke’s ex in-laws, the scene of his wife’s funeral.
Just when the hero seems to be at the end of his rope – at least emotionally – the destiny, in the form of screenwriters Brandon Camp and Mike Thompson, sends Eloise Chandler (Jennifer Aniston) his way. Eloise is a bohemian florist who floats through life and scribbles unusual words on the walls behind the paintings in the hotel where Burke teaches his seminar. Their first two encounters are, not surprisingly, clashes. When they meet for the first time, Eloise turns him away in American Sign Language, convinced Burke is just another Casanova on a business trip. However, Burke gets his revenge by showing Eloise a sign of his own: the middle finger. The scene where Eloise follows him into the men’s restroom to vent her anger is actually the most entertaining of the entire movie.
The Obligatory Romance
In the traditional romantic comedy, the protagonists start by abhorring each other or by apparently having nothing in common, just to realize in the end that they were made for each other. However, Love Happens steps away from this cliché in the worst possible way. At the end of the story, we are still not convinced that Burke and Eloise belong together.
Part of the problem might be the lack of chemistry between the two protagonists. The viewer can completely agree with Burke and Eloise when they shake hands at the end of their first official date, admitting that it was nothing short of “terrible”. The shock comes when they agree to continue to see each other, just because Burke explains that he’s been sitting out of the dating game for a while. The young florist seems flattered enough to be “his first” (date since the end of his marriage) to continue with this self-deluding romance.
Eloise is never more than a secondary character in the story. All the audience knows about her is that she has just broken up with another musician boyfriend and that she keeps going after the same unfaithful, unstable type, as if to confirm her lack of trust in men. Her odd habit of scribbling words on walls covered with paintings is never explained, nor is it played out enough to contribute to the character’s depth, as it was probably intended by the screenwriters. Jennifer Aniston adopts her characteristic relaxed demeanor in the role of Eloise, unconvincing as the victim of repeated break-ups or as the one person who sees beyond Burke’s charade, into his wounds.
The Big Secret and the Revelation
The rom-com formula dictates that one of the two protagonists – usually the apparently invulnerable guy – have a well guarded secret that makes him vulnerable. Burke is no exception to this rule. Judging by the expression on Eloise’s face when peeking in on one of Burke’s seminar sessions, she seems to sense his vulnerability. Her compulsion to fix someone who is more broken than her could be the explanation (although not clearly relayed on the screen) to her obstinacy to pursue a relationship with Burke.
His secret is predictably revealed in front of an audience, in a final session that is supposed to mark Burke’s moment of glory, the culmination of a week of successful healing. The sentimentality of the moment is attenuated however by Aaron Eckhart’s performance. With subtle changes in his facial expression, Eckhart manages to capture the bewilderment of a man who has trained himself to smile and finds that, all of a sudden, he can no longer pretend in front of his audience or lie to himself. The climactic moment is also saved by Martin Sheen’s performance (in the role of Burke’s father-in-law), which manages to turn melodrama into genuine emotion.
The Show
Burke’s confession gains the sympathy of his fans and of a media network tycoon who appreciates honesty (as long as it sells). After the standing ovation, the story takes us back to Eloise’s shop, where Burke declares his feelings for her and asks for a second chance. The moment is witnessed by Eloise’s friend, Marty (Judy Greer). Hopefully, one day romantic comedies will stop presuming that public confession equates dramatic intensity, but that day has not yet come.
- Distributed by: Universal Pictures
- Directed by: Brandon Camp
- Written by: Brandon Camp, Mike Thompson
- Runtime: 110 minutes
