Love, Rosie is the epitome of a near-miss. Besides the fact that it’s full of near-misses, the movie’s charming leads salvage it from being just another predictable romantic drama.
Spanning 12 years, Love, Rosie tells the story of Rosie (Lily Collins) and Alex (Sam Claflin), two best friends and soul mates, who keeping missing their chance to be together. It all starts with a kiss on Rosie’s 18th birthday before she blacks out from having a bit too much fun involving tequila. She wakes up the next day feeling awful, and telling Alex that she wants to forget everything that happened. Not realizing that Rosie doesn’t remember the kiss, Alex assumes she means that she regrets kissing him. From there, 12 years of heartache between these two commence with failed relationships, secrets, and misunderstandings galore.
The thing with Love, Rosie is that you know how it’s going to end. There are no twists or surprises. I don’t even need to tell you how it ends because you probably already know. I was at least hoping that the journey for them would be entertaining or relatable. Instead, each step of Rosie and Alex’s journeys is a cliché. Even the supporting characters fit so well into this cliché little romance. Rosie’s quirky friend that tells it like it is, and Alex’s shallow, supermodel girlfriend all fit into this mold. There’s nothing new presented here. If you’ve seen any romantic drama ever, you would see remnants of it in this movie.
However, there are two saving graces of the film, and that’s Lily Collins and Sam Claflin. These two give such sincere performances, that I really wished they were in a movie worthy of their chemistry. The movie seems to get better when these two share a scene, and as a whole, they make Love, Rosie not so regrettable of a watch.
It’s kind of hard to watch this movie knowing that one conversation could have cleared up all of Rosie and Alex’s problems at the beginning. By the end, I suppose each of their journeys is validated by the fact that they’re mature enough to finally be honest with their feelings. Maybe it wouldn’t have worked out if Rosie remembered that first kiss. But still… it took them 12 years? Really?
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Love, Rosie has its moments, and for a VOD pick, it’s a decent one, especially if you’re looking for a romance with charming performances. Collins and Claflin’s affable screen presence is worth seeking out for a few bucks just to see how good these two young talents can be.
Rating: 5/10
Love, Rosie is now available on Video On Demand.
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