Love hits the fan

Love happens everywhere, and it certainly flourishes in rainy Seattle, Washington. If only Brandon Camp's earnest attempt at an endearing romantic comedy was as affecting as its setting.

Love Happens tells the story of Burke Ryan (Aaron Eckhart), a widowed self-help guru who rocketed to stardom when he penned a how-to book about coping with grief after his wife died in a car wreck. There's just one problem: It's a lie, and Ryan is a fraud. He hasn't coped with his wife's death. He drinks secretly, is prone to black moods and just generally keeps his pain bottled up. He may be helping people with his platitudinous repackaging of "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade," but, personally, he is emotionally petrified.

Enter Eloise (Jennifer Aniston), a mercurial florist whom Ryan literally stumbles into during a seminar he's leading in Seattle. Freshly burned by the latest in a long string of loser boyfriends, Eloise initially rejects Ryan's advances, and the pair engages in few heated rounds of the battle of the sexes before their relationship begins to take off.

It's a slightly worn but generally admirable premise: Can love transform a broken life? Can love, short of conquering all, at least conquer the shrieking isolation of a lost soul stuck in a purgatory of perpetual grief? The answer, of course, is inevitable in a film that bills itself as date fare. But, unlike so many feckless films in this blighted genre, the director and his cast seem to genuinely mean it.

Eckhart gives a typically stellar performance. Aniston, playing yet another variation on Rachel Green from Friends - sans the laugh-track-laden sitcom zingers - is perfectly fine. She's got one shtick, but the shtick fits nicely into this film, and she's certainly not phoning it in (one wonders how she manages to keep it fresh in project after project). Martin Sheen brings some heft to the role of Ryan's dead wife's father, stopping the son-in-law after an ostensibly inspiring performance at one of his workshops and saying, "When are you going to stop lying, son?" Frances Conroy is also noteworthy in a small role as Eloise's mother.

Critics have not been kind to the film, despite its superiority over nearly every other romantic comedy this year. It's tempting to give it a pass for that very reason, but aesthetic relativism simply won't do. Despite its redeeming qualities, Love Happens falls apart early on, and, like the proverbial Humpty, never manages to fit the pieces convincingly back together again.

Some small flaws can be overlooked: bizarre cinematographic moments, presumably attempts at high art, featuring the point-of-view inanimate objects and fresh fruit; a saccharine soundtrack; and a tedious subplot concerning a potential marketing deal. But the real culprit is pacing. Camp's scenes unfold at a glacial pace, bleeding each new joke of life and sucking the air out of otherwise atmospheric moments.

Time is relative, and it is films like this one that drive the point home. Its modest running time of 109 minutes feels interminable in places, a fact that strikes one as a real travesty when you have earnest and charismatic actors, a relatively clever and poignant script and a setting as beautiful as Seattle to work with.

Ah, Seattle. Anyone who has visited the water-logged Emerald City will know the sights captured by an adoring Camp are not often as picturesque as those presented here. The mountains are indeed lovely, but you can't usually see them through the murk of cumulous nimbi. Puget Sound is indeed inviting - for about two months of the year. The rest of the time, it's a slate-gray counterpoint to similarly shaded skies and cracked concrete. Nonetheless, the city offers a perfect setting for cinematic romance, as countless films have demonstrated in the past. Camp treats the city the way Woody Allen shoots New York: in the best possible light and to the greatest possible effect.

Ultimately, it isn't enough. The many admirable elements present in Love Happens can't overcome the gravity of leaden pacing. It isn't quite watching paint dry, but it's close enough to warrant seeking out more diverting entertainments.

James Walling can be reached at
jwalling@praguepost.com