Love Happens
Directed by Brandon Camp
Do not let the terminally chipper demeanor and outward professional success of Burke Ryan (Aaron Eckhardt) fool you! Lest you believe, for even a moment, that this handsome man—a best-selling self-help author with a crowd of adoring fans—is satisfied, and not just living a life of irony as he helps others deal with their grief but can’t deal with his own, Brandon Camp, the director of Love Happens, will take every pain to make it clear to you that he isn’t. Helpfully, Camp deploys multiple scenes of Burke with a stiff drink and watery eyes, looking out longingly from the windows of his expensive hotel room. But in case that went over your head, here we have Burke holding his breath underwater in the swimming pool, trying to “drown out” the flash-backs of his dead wife. Do you get it now? Ok, how about some violins, playing every moment he isn’t talking to another human being. Holed up in the hotel while Burke hosts a self-help convention in Seattle, we are almost misled to believe he’ll die a sad and lonely hypocrite, but as luck would have it, in an unlikely twist of events, look who shows up in his life (queue the Norah Jones)? It’s Jennifer Anniston, perfectly cast as the optimistic, laid back flower arranger, Eloise! Wearing crazy-cozy wool sweaters and a rad new beanie hat in each scene, Eloise is the quirkster Burke has been looking for, if only she could stop deploying complicated avoidance mechanisms to keep herself from getting hurt in love (again!).
Will both of these damaged adults learn to let go of their pain and find Love again?
I won’t divulge that here, because I wouldn’t want to spoil the ending for you.
Opens September 18
Just saw the movie with a dozen girlfriends. Aaron A is definitely hot,if you like the waspish preppy clean cut blue eyed cliff chin muscly look. The movie is a tear jerk er (yep, the violins worked up their magic). Too bad Jennifer was not deaf-mute after all!