Valentine’s Day (**½)
Directed by: Garry MarshallStarring: Ashton Kutcher, Jennifer Garner, Bradley Cooper, Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Eric Dane, Patrick Dempsey, Hector Elizondo, Jamie Foxx, Topher Grace, Anne Hathaway, Queen Latifah, Taylor Lautner, George Lopez, Shirley McLaine, Emma Roberts, Julia Roberts, Taylor Swift, Kathy Bates, Carter Jenkins
Seen: March 6th 2010
**½ Out of ****
I am going to go ahead and call Valentine’s Day what it is: an American attempt at bloodily ripping off Love Actually. It has the massive cast with the numerous smaller romantic arcs and some attempts at the same kind of single connection point between all the characters. But where Love Actually was an unbridled success, Valentine’s Day is more of a hit-and-miss affair. Love Actually had more connections between all the characters, making the cast seem more like a massive family, while Valentine’s Day only brings in more of those connections nearing its relatively effective last 20 minutes. Problem is; it takes the movie far too long to get there, with way too much cynicism. Love Actually also based itself more on emotion, using the way people feel when dropping or picking up relatives or friends at the airport, where Valentine’s Day bases itself on what has become a marketing gimmick, a day used to exploit love – maybe that’s the flaw here…
Valentine’s Day starts off with a sweet bit of love story as Reed (Kutcher) asks Morley (Alba) to marry him and she says yes – on Valentine’s Day. Reed is as close as Valentine’s Day comes to a lead character, and he is also the best character in the movie, aptly supported by his colleague and best friend, Alphonso, who is extremely happily married. His best friend is Julia (Garner), who is very excited about her new boyfriend, heart surgeon Harrison (Dempsey), and Reed convinces her to go after Harrison on Valentine’s Day. Holden (Cooper) is on a flight home, and Captain Kate Hazlitine (Julia Roberts), also on her way home, but only for one day, falls asleep on his shoulder. Kelvin (Foxx) is his network’s number two sports guy, but his boss Susan (Bates) pushes him into the field to get human interest stories on Valentine’s Day, while along the way he also consoles and comforts the sporadically depressed Kara (Biel), who is the publicist of famous football star Sean (Dane). Edgar and Estelle Paddington (Elizondo and McLaine) are grandparents to Edison, who is in love with Julia, his teacher. Edison’s babysitter, Grace (Emma Roberts), also hand the Paddingtons an all new headache in that she tells them that she and her boyfriend Alex (Jenkins) are planning to have sex for the first time on Valentine’s Day – yes, indeed they are attempting to schedule love. Jason (Grace) is a mailroom clerk at the same company where his new girlfriend Liz (Hathaway) has just started working for Paula, Sean’s agent. Liz also moonlights as an adult phone entertainer, and obviously tries to hide this fact from Jason, but the timing of her moonlighting becomes an issue too. Then almost finally there’s also Willy (Lautner) and Felicia (Swift), a young couple displaying the typical high school crush kind of love…
There you have it; Valentine’s Day tries valiantly to cover all kinds of love and sporadically hits the mark with some small things: the crush Edison has on his teacher is sweet, the way Felicia jumps around after kissing Willy just before the elevator doors close is exhilarating, and much more. All these small things are scheduled closer to the end of the movie, which is fortuitous in that the impression stays with the viewer, but the rest of the movie cannot be put aside because the ending does well. For big parts, Valentine’s Day feels longwinded and like it’s seemingly going nowhere. It takes quite a while to establish the numerous relationships, but then also keeps things on either a hiatus or teetering on the edge of destruction for a bit too long. The last 20 minutes are worth it though, and I might even consider watching it again one day, if only for some cheap romantic thrills which does somehow find their way into your heart, even though there are almost too many characters.
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