“Love Happens,” the new star vehicle for Jennifer Aniston and Aaron Eckhart, has a lot happening: death, forgiveness, healing, beat poetry, exotic birds, lemons, burning coals, questionable alcohol abuse, stairs, secret words written behind paintings and so on. Adding love to this diverse list would not seem so far-fetched, especially since it is, after all, in the title. That would, however, be wholly inaccurate in describing this mess of a film that falls short in trying to be too many things at once instead of directing its energy toward a central theme.
The story focuses primarily on Dr. Burke Ryan (Eckhart, “The Dark Knight”) a self-help guru who has acquired thousands of followers at sold-out conventions that deal with healing after the passing of loved ones. His tour takes him to Seattle, where he stumbles upon a florist named Eloise (Aniston. “He’s Just Not That Into You”) at his hotel. They both meet at difficult points in their lives. Burke is on the cusp of a multimillion-dollar deal that will make him into the next Dr. Phil, yet, is hesitant because he has his own demons to face behind his always-smiling public persona. Eloise, on the other hand, just ended one of many bad relationships and just wants to meet a good guy. Sigh. Their messy lives collide. How convenient life is when boiled down to Hollywood formulas.
How the film executes this relationship is where things get fuzzy. While the premise seems fairly simple, the film becomes jumbled with too many heavy themes and it is difficult to find the importance in just one of them. There is the so-called love story between Burke and Eloise, which is essentially a chain of random cheesy moments that cause the viewer to question: “Where is this going?” In one scene, they view a Rogue Wave concert from telephone truck lift because tickets were sold out. This moment is not only corny, but an awkwardly placed advertisement for the band.
While this so-called love story is happening, the film dedicates a good chunk of time to Burke’s therapy convention, which is based on his famous punch line “A-Okay!” There is a patient of Burke’s named Walter (John Carroll Lynch, “Gran Torino”) who is having a particularly difficult time coping with the death of his son. Walter was a contractor before his son died, and so to help him come to grips with the pain, Burke takes him on a shopping trip to Home Depot to “get his life back.” The moment is meant to be a tearjerker and almost succeeds due to Lynch’s endearing performance, yet it comes across as strange. A shopping trip to alleviate the death of a child? It seems inappropriately shallow. A cheap shot to make the audience grab for the Kleenex and then go buy some tools.
Yet that is what this movie is: a shallow landscape where too many plot elements are thrown into an inch of water. The performances could be something more if the plot allowed them to swim a little more. Eckhart captures the inner turmoil of Burke well by effectively contrasting his put-together appearance with his inner demon in the same way that made him a successful Harvey Dent/Two Face in “The Dark Knight.” Aniston plays herself — which is growing tiresome — once again relying on her likeability to drive the character of Eloise. The supporting cast features solid performances by Dan Fogler (“Taking Woodstock”) as Burke’s agent and the always-pleasant Judy Greer (“Wig”) as Eloise’s eccentric employee and poetry enthusiast. Martin Sheen (“Imagine That”) also makes a touching appearance as Burke’s estranged father-in-law. All of these performances work nicely together, but they suffer under the flawed, formulaic script and uneven storytelling.
There are some redeeming qualities to this film despite the story’s many flaws. The cinematography is impressive, offering an array of graceful, upward-flowing camera movements symbolic of the imminence of life, death and the aspiration to move forward.
“Love Happens” tries to handle too much material, covering a wide range of soap opera-esque problems, overly dramatic exchanges and strange quirks that cannot all possibly be delved into in the allotted time of 129 minutes. The pacing leaves too many plots vying for screen time, leaving some behind in the dust, undeveloped and open-ended. In fact, instead of trying to make an impact on the audience through thoughtful storytelling, it seems like all this film is trying to do is hear a collective “aww” from the audience. This can be done, but the audience has to care first.
2 stars out of 5.
