Love Happens

Kaleem Aftab

• Last Updated: October 21. 2009 5:32PM UAE / October 21. 2009 1:32PM GMT

• Rating:

Director: Brandon Camp

Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Jennifer Aniston, Martin Sheen

The director Brandon Camp tries hard to make this more than the usual boy-meets-girl-and-falls-in-love rom-com film, but in presenting a character study of a man grieving over the loss of his wife, he crucially forgets one thing: romantic comedies need both romance and comedy, and this barely has either.

Aaron Eckhart is the man you turn to when you need an actor who seems like a nice guy on the surface but is sinister underneath (see The Dark Knight and In the Company of Men). This is a variation on the theme, but instead of Eckhart’s hidden side being sinister and evil, here he is broken and lost. Sadly those last two adjectives could also be used to describe this performance.

Eckhart plays Dr Burke Ryan, who makes a living giving self-help seminars on grief counselling. His latest gig is in Seattle and as he tells a photographer, he landed the job by chance. His wife died in a car crash three years previously and this led to his writing a book about coping with grief, which became a bestseller.

In the lobby of the hotel where he’s giving his conference, he bumps into Eloise Chandler, a florist played by Jennifer Aniston. This casting choice should have set alarm bells ringing. Ever since Aniston lost her Friends, she’s been like a deer in headlights, freezing whenever a camera is pointed at her. Her rom-com roles read like a how-not-to guide: He’s Just Not That Into You (I wonder why), Picture Perfect, The Object of My Affection and Marley and Me, in which she is acted off the screen by a pooch.

Here she is given one moment to excel, when she responds in sign language to brush aside Ryan’s attempt to ask for a date. But once he realises she can talk, her role is relegated to that of bystander. Their dinner at a restaurant is a standard awkward first date. Largely because of the set-up of the film, in which Ryan needs to accept that he still hasn’t got over the loss of his wife before he can move on to another relationship, she is more counsellor than girlfriend.

It was a brave decision by Camp to concentrate on Burke’s internal turmoil rather than his romantic overtures. It’s just such a shame that the tale about his work and personal life is a string of old clichés.

Martin Sheen plays Ryan’s father-in-law, who turns up at his conference trying to admonish Ryan to deal with his own issues and not hide behind the false emotions contained within his book. Sheen tries to deliver his lines with humour: evidently Camp forgot to tell him that this was not really a comedy.

In one scene, Ryan forces his way into the house and tries to free a bird that had belonged to his late wife. Camp just doesn’t know what to do here. The sequence starts off being played for laughs and ends by trying to deliver a poignant message about memories. In the end it manages neither.

Other actors wasted are Dan Folger as Ryan’s manager, who is always getting fired and hired, and Judy Greer, who has made a career out of playing the best friend to lean on in chick flicks. She’s a slam poet who works part-time in Eloise’s flower shop and offers advice when it’s needed.

However, when all is said and done, this film is not completely without merit. Unlike most Hollywood efforts of the genre, it does try to say something serious about human emotions, trauma and the need to address personal issues in order to deal with the many problems that life throws up. Camp’s message is that sometimes we may love someone despite ourselves, for unexplainable reasons, and that this is perfectly fine because often, love just happens.