Movie Review: Safe Haven (2013)

Genre: Romantic Drama  

Director: Lasse Hallström  

Starring: Julianne Hough, Josh Duhamel, David Lyons, Cobie Smulders  

Running Time: 115 minutes  

Synopsis: Katie (Julianne Hough) escapes an abusive relationship and attempts to start a new life in the idyllic small community of Southport, North Carolina. She rents a secluded house, befriends her neighbour Jo (Cobie Smulders), and starts a romance with single dad Alex (Josh Duhamel), who lost his wife to cancer. Meanwhile, a Boston police detective (David Lyons) is obsessively hunting Katie down.

What Works Well: This adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel carries the requisite dreamy looks and feel good vibes, combining aesthetic gloss with a romance tinged by life's challenges. Julianne Hough and Josh Duhamel will not win many acting awards but make for an attractive couple, and do enough to register the scars of troubled pasts. The seaside village is a snug location for love to blossom, and a final gentle plot twist adds wistful elegance.

What Does Not Work As Well: Katie's backstory is kept secret for too long, leaving the antagonist to flounder in an altogether separate movie. Meanwhile the romance between Katie and Alex unfolds at a glacial pace, Hallström determined to milk the small town milieu for all its worth. The cliches include the canoe excursion disrupted by a downpour and the ever-so-charming 4th of July festivities. As a result of all the padding, the running time is a good 25 minutes longer than necessary. 

Conclusion: Passable postcard romance with some dark edges.



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: You're Not You (2014)

Genre: Drama

Director: George C. Wolfe

Starring: Hilary Swank, Emmy Rossum, Josh Duhamel 

Running Time: 102 minutes

Synopsis: At 35-years-old, former pianist Kate Parker (Hilary Swank) develops the first signs of ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease). 18 months later, the disease is rapidly degrading Kate's physical autonomy. Her lawyer husband Evan (Josh Duhamel) is doing his best to cope, and Kate hires shiftless college student Bec (Emmy Rossum) as a caretaker. Kate and Bec gradually develop a deep bond of friendship, while Evan's actions jeopardize the marriage.

What Works Well: Director George C. Wolfe rises above the hazards of trite territory by focussing on the unlikely and sometimes difficult friendship between the straightlaced Kate (slipping towards death) and free-spirited Bec (finally stumbling upon a purpose in life). Hilary Swank and Emmy Rossum both sparkle in creating two complex women finding strength, solace, and purpose, and their relationship nurtures the core theme of women seeking genuine connections. The strong supporting cast includes Loretta Devine and Ernie Hudson as a couple also dealing with ALS, plus Marcia Gay Harden, Frances Fisher, Ali Larter, and Ed Begley Jr.

What Does Not Work As Well: The tears are well earned, but the sentimentality levels occasionally threaten to break the needle. The side-stories involving Bec's love life (with Jason Ritter as potential boyfriend material) and her singing/songwriting aspirations deserved more screen time.

Conclusion: A cruel disease can still be an arena for triumphant spirits.



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Lost Husband (2020)

A bland drama and tepid romance, The Lost Husband tries to milk a story from disinterested goats. 

In Texas, Libby (Leslie Bibb) has lost her husband to a car crash and her house to financial insolvency. She can no longer tolerate living with her insufferable mother Marsha (Sharon Lawrence), so relocates along with her kids Abby and Tank to the rural farm of kindly aunt Jean (Nora Dunn). 

The kids quickly settle into a new routine, although Abby tangles with a bully at school. Jean puts Libby to work on the farm, learning from gruff but handsome farmhand O'Connor (Josh Duhamel). Libby also meets Jean's boyfriend Russ and his granddaughter Sunshine, who dabbles in fortunetelling and communicating with the dead. Just as Libby is starting to enjoy her new life, secrets from the past emerge.

Functioning close to the level of saccharine Hallmark Channel movies, The Lost Husband ambles around the picturesque Texas countryside looking for a purpose. Director Vicky Wight throws in frequent shots of beautiful sunsets and cute farm animals (goats, cows, and a rooster), because precious little else is going on to maintain attention.

The romance between Libby and O'Connor catches a single spark in a barn dance scene, but otherwise he disappears for long stretches. The school bullying story is a routine and unnecessary distraction. The triangle of tension between Libby, her mother Marsha and aunt Jean is unbalanced, Marsha's portrayal as the wicked witch of Texas leaving no room for nuance. Jean's relationship with Russ (who is black) appears inserted to burnish interracial credentials, while Sunshine, with all her intrusive questions, bursts in from another movie.

Leslie Bibb never gets a handle on Libby, neither as a mother suffering from loss nor as a farmhand-in-the-making, while Josh Duhamel is too comfortable as the tough but kind man-around-the-farm. The final act introduces a revelation about Libby's childhood that is much less dramatic than the film wants it to be. The husband is lost early, as is the rest of the plot.

  

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Love, Simon (2018)

A high school romantic comedy and drama, Love, Simon finds sensitive humour and humanity in  the story of a young gay man struggling with coming out.

In a suburb of Atlanta, Simon Spier (Nick Robinson) is a well-adjusted teenager from a middle class family in his final year of high school. He gets along well with his hip parents Emily and Jack (Jennifer Garner and Josh Duhamel) and his younger sister Nora (Talitha Bateman). Simon's one big secret is that he is gay, and worried about the consequences, he is unsure when and how to come out, or whether he even should.

His best friend of many years is Leah (Katherine Langford), and his other good friends include soccer player Nick (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.), who is interested in Abby (Alexandra Shipp), the new girl at school. Martin (Logan Miller) is an obnoxious classmate lusting after Abby.

Under the alias Jacques, Simon anonymously enters into an email exchange with someone using the pseudonym Blue, an unknown schoolmate who reveals himself to be gay. The correspondence blossoms into a digital romance, with Simon ever more desperate to find out who Blue is. But Martin stumbles onto the emails, and attempts to blackmail Simon into helping him connect with Abby.

Directed by Greg Berlanti, Love, Simon succeeds at what appeared almost impossible: breathe a burst of refreshing new life into two long moribund sub-genres, the high school comedy and the rom-com. And Love, Simon achieves its success by embracing smart kids, delving into the world of true friendships, and steering well clear of bro-level stupid gags and body fluid jokes. Rather than being celebrated, the annoying classmates here are the annoying classmates, destined to make life miserable for others but mostly for themselves.

The core of the film deals with the strain of announcing sexual identity, and despite falling in love with the elusive Blue, Simon finds it exceptionally difficult to gather up the necessary courage. His coming out predicament lands in the middle of a loving family and an exceptionally close-knit group of friends. And if a guy like Simon finds the idea of revealing he is gay terrifying, society still has a long way to go to welcome diversity in all its forms.

The humour is nuanced and stems from the situations. Simon and his friends are involved in putting on a school play production of Cabaret, and their drama teacher Ms. Albright (Natasha Rothwell) has to tolerate the talent limitations at her disposal. Vice Principal Mr. Worth  (Tony Hale) patrols the hallways clumsily trying to bridge the generational gap. And Simon's sister Nora is into a cooking phase, subjecting the family to daily culinary experiments.

And when it's time for honest and serious conversations the film delivers, a stirring and difficult scene between Simon and his mother hitting exactly the right tone of parental love.

The romance elements are unique and timely. Simon falling in love with an emailer affords Berlanti the opportunity to playfully bring to life imagined scenarios, as various guys at school occupy Simon's mind as potential Blue candidates. The film wraps an intriguing mystery into its mix, challenging the audience to play along and spot who may be the gay lover-to-be from among Simon's acquaintances. The impossibility of the task is exactly the film's point: we are all different, and all the same.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Life As We Know It (2010)

The biggest challenge for romantic comedy writers is coming up with designs for new hoops to be jumped through by the inevitable lovers, prior to their arrival at the pre-determined happy ending.

Life As We Know It succeeds in reaching for a fairly new premise: Holly and Eric, who initially can't stand each other, are forced to jointly care for a baby under tragic circumstances. Life As We Know It turns a typical couplehood stress point on its head: instead of the pressures of planned parenting rupturing a pre-existing relationship, Holly and Ken are unexpectedly thrown into unwanted parenting roles, and the experience brings them closer.

Holly (Katherine Heigl) and Eric (Josh Duhamel) once went out on a date that turned into an unmitigated disaster. But Katherine is best friends with Alison (Christina Hendricks), and Eric is best buddies with Peter (Hayes MacArthur), and Alison and Peter are a happily married couple. Holly and Eric are therefore the appointed godparents of the newborn Sophie, the first daughter of Alison and Peter. The worst does happen, and Sophie is orphaned. Holly and Eric are suddenly thrust into becoming the parents of a baby, having to deal with overwhelming responsibilities while learning to tolerate each other.

Eric is a hopeless womanizer, and his new role as a parent makes him even more irresistible to a succession of one-night hook-ups. Holly attracts the attention of Sam (Josh Lucas), Sophie's pediatrician. But inevitably, Eric and Holly are drawn together and transition from mutually repelling each other to parents who become lovers. Life for Eric gets complicated again when he gets the career opportunity of a lifetime, but accepting it would mean relocating away from his new roles of an accidental father to Sophie and unexpected partner to Holly.

Watching adults muddle through early parenting responsibilities is funny but well-worn movie territory. Life As We Know It trots out the typical laughs that stem from diaper changes, baby-sitters who are more capable than the parents, and exhausting night-long car drives to sooth the baby. But director Greg Berlanti keeps his eye on ball, and the travails of parenting in Life As We Know It are all about Holly and Eric discovering what they are individually capable of, and seeing in each other as partners something much more than what they were as singles.

The film demonstrates more than the usual bravery in hinging a romantic comedy on a tragedy, and the drama that underpins the narrative ensures that a serious undertone permeates through Life As We Know It, keeping the laughs in control and allowing plenty of time for examining themes of loss and sudden responsibility -- not the typical fare for what is often a light-headed genre. The relatively unique setting of Atlanta, Georgia is another plus -- romantic comedies can exist outside of New York.

Heigl, still struggling to carve out a post-Grey's Anatomy movie career, is a likable female lead, more approachable and earthy than a Jennifer Aniston, and less brash than a Kate Hudson. From the mild and predictable menu of comic, dramatic, attractive, sexy and romantic emotions required in the genre, Heigl is not brilliant at any one thing, but is at least above-average in all of them. Josh Duhamel is only in the movie for his hunky I-think-I'm-so-cool-on-my-motorcycle looks, and not even he appears to be attempting to pretend otherwise. The supporting cast is bland enough to inoffensively deliver the expected sideline quips while barely leaving a mark.

The movie does suffer from a typical fundamental weakness of romantic comedies, in glossing over exactly what triggers the attraction between Holly and Eric. A lot of minutes are invested in highlighting why these two simply do not get along. After episodes of splattered baby poo, diaper changes, and loud arguments, they suddenly fall into each other's arms, just because the running time is dangerously approaching the two hour mark.

The interesting premise of Life As We Know It does not a great movie make, but in this genre, interesting is often quite good enough.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.