Valentine’s Day

Remember the early days of photocopiers? You could duplicate a document and it would be an exact replica of that document only just a little imperfect. You could see smudge marks and the paper wouldn't be as clear as with the original. Then if you made a copy of the copy, it was even further away from the original. Keep making copies from copies and soon what you were left with is a greatly inferior product which is almost unrecognizable from the original. This process is what I was reminded of after seeing Valentine's Day.

In 2003, the team behind Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill came up with the ensemble multi-storyline romantic comedy Love Actually. Due in large part to the skilful writing and directing of Richard Curtis, this became a huge success both critically and financially and created the original which would others would inevitably copy. Last year's He's Just Not that Into You, was the first generation copy. Not quite as sharp as the original but sufficiently funny and sweet when it needed to be. Watching Valentine's Day, I felt like I was watching a seventh generation copy. You could see the connection between it and the original but the difference in quality was remarkable.

Valentine's Day is directed by Gary Marshall who treats it like an episode of This Is Your Life, bringing back an all-star cast from his previous films. Julia Roberts (Pretty Woman) appears as a soldier returning home for one day to spend Valentine`s Day with someone special. Anne Hathaway (The Princess Diaries) plays a recent English Lit grad who struggles with juggling jobs as a receptionist and a phone sex worker. All while trying to keep the latter from her new boyfriend played by Toper Grace. Other storylines linclude:

• A flower shop owner (Ashton Kutcher) who proposes to his girlfriend (Jessica Alba) only to have that proposal met with a lukewarm reception.
  
• An elementary school teacher (Jennifer Garner) decides to surprise her dreamy doctor boyfriend (Patrick Dempsey , like I had to tell you) and ends up getting a surprise of her own.
  
• An aging Pro football quarterback (Eric Dane) decides to use Valentine's Day to make a shocking announcement. Without giving it away, picture Brett Favre meets Johnny Weir. It`s faaaaabulous!
  
• A fifth grader desperately tries to get flowers to the object of his affection. She must know how he truly feels.
  
• A sports reporter (Jamie Foxx) is assigned to do a man-on-the-street interview on the meaning of Valentine's day and makes a connection with a PR agent (Jessica Biel)who is down on love and hates Valentine`s Day.
  

And that`s not even all of the superstars and their storylines. I still haven`t covered Bradley Cooper, Queen Latifa, George Lopez, Taylor Swift and Taylor Lautner, and Shirley McLain and Hector Elizondo. If you`re as bored of reading about the all-star cast as I am of writing about it, you start to get a picture of where this movie went wrong. In this instance, more is not necessarily merrier.

What the filmmakers failed to appreciate is that for the audience to get invested in the lives of these people we need to spend enough time to get to know them and then care when their lives start spiralling out of control. And when you only have so many minutes of screen time, it is nearly impossible to give these characters enough breathing room to make their journeys seem authentic. What's unfortunate is it's not like there weren't stories that could have been really interesting.

With the Eric Dane QB character, it would have been really fascinating to see where that storyline would have developed after he made his big announcement. Unfortunately the only thing we see with him after that is the reveal of who his Valentine is. I really liked the development of the Topher Grace and Anne Hathaway relationship. But because of too much time wasted on say the adorable but pointless storyline of the two Taylors, the Toper/Anne storyline had to take huge shortcuts that undermined its effectiveness. The same applies to the realization that Ashton Kutcher and Jennifer Garner make. Because they have to bring it in for a landing sooner than it really should, it detracts from the emotional impact it has on the audience.

It's not just the oversaturation of A-list talent that holds this back from being on par with a Love Actually. A lot of the time, the comedy comes off as sit-com hacky. Ashton Kutcher tells his friend how he loves this day because everyone of happy and filled with the spirit of love. Then he pulls out into traffic and almost collides with another driver who promptly screams at him and chews him out. An obvious and flat punch line. The first time we see Anne Hathaway doing her phone sex job, she is on her cell phone outside an apartment building and within earshot of a middle aged woman in a bathrobe. When Hathaway makes mention of a three-way, the woman says "Let me get freshened up and I'll be right there." I almost expected to hear the CBS laugh track.

Valentine's Day is not a terrible movie. It's just not a very good one either. It is light and enjoyable on a surface level and there are times when you smile at the adorable antics up on the screen. It's just sad that with all that star power, this is the highest they could raise the bar.

 

Circumstances Under Which You Should See This Movie: You're the number one golfer in the world and for some reason you find yourself in a position where you have a lot of making up to do with your wife. She loves light fluffy "chick flicks" and she wants you to take her out to the movies. You are afraid this may not be what you hoped for in a movie but you have no more capital in the marriage and must do pretty much anything she says for the rest of your lives. Under these circumstances, I would suggest you see Valentine's Day.