love happens

'love happens' is mis-titled. it should be 'death happens' or 'bad movies happen.' this movie is classified as a dramedy- my friend called it a dramadary. so what i had in my head was an image of a camel trudging through the sahara throughout this long, bleak, nothing new, nothing interesting landscape of a film.

aaron eckhart and jennifer aniston literally bump into each other and the romance begins. this also signals the end of any hope of seeing anything original. he's the tony robbins of grieving encamped in a hotel for a weekend seminar and she's the hotel's florist who makes bad relationship choices. at one point her friend tells her that she's tired of watching her repeatedly date the same kind of guy while being disappointed that it never works out. i half expected the friend to break character, shake her, slap her and yell, "snap out of it, jennifer!!"

there were goofs (movie mistakes)- a badge was turned the wrong way but was magically righted in the next second, and jennifer's scarves were always re-adjusting themselves when the camera cut away from her. also aaron wore the same tie twice only in different colors. these are all details that would have gone unnoticed had there been anything else more interesting happening on the screen.

there are tears. there are sad stories of loss after all, but they are telegraphed as we are dragged through the seminar focusing on the story of the one familiar face in a sea of extras (john carroll lynch who played drew's brother steve in the drew carey show). he plays the participant who has to be talked into staying but gets the most out of the seminar and teaches others along the way. in the end of course, it's aaron's character who has the biggest breakthrough, in front of everyone, including his father (martin sheen) who's timing for showing up at this one moment is nothing short of miraculous.

unusual words play a key part in getting aaron and jennifer's characters together. she writes them behind pictures in his hotel and he finds them. the word that kept popping into my head was, mawkish, which means-sentimental in an nauseatingly insipid way.

don't go- don't rent.