by The Film Blogger

Created on: October 11, 2009

It's no secret that trailers lie; they piece together the best parts of a film to make it seem so much better than it actually is, but sadly, the trailer for Love Happens, which roused more laughter than sympathy in this critic, did not lie. The film is every bit as cornball and schmaltzy as its promotional material implied if, of course, you distended it out to 109 minutes of intermittent torture.

Burke Ryan (Aaron Eckhart) is a self-help author and therapist who has become a poster-boy for helping others cope with their loss. However, he has yet to fully confront his own loss; the death of his wife in a car accident three years ago, and so finds it difficult to approach Eloise (Jennifer Aniston), a florist he meets outside a seminar and takes quite a shine to. If they are going to be together, he is going to have to confront the memory of his wife and accept, rather than ignore, that she is gone.

While the concept has promise, it's the fault of director and co-writer Brandon Camp that this is a strictly routine melodramedy; it's infused with the manufactured whimsy of so many crudely-assembled Hollywood rom-coms, and from the moment early on that Eckhart strolls along a hallway to the inordinately-sentimental-pop-song-of-the-week to meet his overweight manager Lane (Dan Fogler), who doubles as a comedy sidekick, it's clear that we're in for a bumpy ride.

If there's anything that makes Love Happens watchable, it's the performances, chiefly that of Aaron Eckhart, who now has a stunning string of turns under his belt, from his breakout as the horrifying misogynist in In The Company of Men, to his excellent interpretation of Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight. Few are going to remember Eckhart for this film especially, but he tries his damndest with the material, and as a motivational speaker dealing with his own demons, he's basically an antidote to the similar Nick Naylor character he played in the brilliant Thank You for Smoking.

Burke's character arc isn't entirely disinteresting, but the problem is that it becomes smothered in the riptide of Hallmark-style truisms and sentimental monologues that not only make this film seem saccharine, but even cause it to appear a touch disingenuous. Notably, as his father in law (Martin Sheen) shows up, he spouts a rhetoric about himself that's stagey beyond words, and serves little purpose beyond blindingly obvious exposition for the audience. Nobody would ever speak that way in real life, and it's just a lazy way for the writers

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