Elsewhere on the site, somebody complained of my blanket condemnation of Lifetime Movies and "chick flicks" in my Adele is overated post from a month back. Perhaps she's right, but "The Vow" won't help her case in the slightest.
Based upon a true story, this dreadful romantic drama about a woman, Rachel McAdams, who suffers partial amnesia after a car accident, and can't remember her husband, Tatum Channing, is yet another high concept romcom without the com.
All well and good as far as it goes and, like Craig Finn, I believe in loved because I've been in love and I'm loved right back. But I don't believe in this overcooked crappola. I don't believe any two people could be as selfish and stupid as these are. I am not sure if the couple are meant to be good folks, but they both come off as selfish dick and I hate them. I can't stand Tatum at any price, he looks like what he once was, a male stripper and as an actor he gives you nothing but his jockstrap good looks.
Rachel McAdams is being groomed as the next Meg Ryan but all she can offer you is that dumbass puppy dog I love you so big man look, and its reverse, the pursed lips, I don't love you I wish I did look. Between the two of them, they have all the chemistry of two people sitting next to each other in the subway. At the end of the movie there is a picture of the real couple. Not only in the real couple much better looking than these Hollywood puppets, but they make sense of the entire movie as they smile with their two kids. You understand instinctively how the man won his wife back.
Anyway, after the accident, everything from Rachel's mid-college days to her present was wiped out. Tatum tries to win her back, but she is back in love with a guy she had earlier dumped. Plus, her family have the lamest skeletons in their closet known to man.
Musically, Tatum runs a recording studio and an embarrassing speech about analog music. Jesus, he makes Dave Grohl sound intelligent. There is also another moment when Tatum explains how when Thom Yorke gets a tingling in his fingers he knows he's is on the edge of genus. Now:
1. This proves both Thom and the writers of this rubbish are idiots
and
2. Hey, that's Mr. OK Computer, what happened to all that analog real music for real people stuff?
Meatloaf was used for a plot point at one point and the rest of the music isn't bad. The Cure's "Pictures Of You" for the closing credits. And, yes, that was Matt Pond's "Specks".
Michael Sucksy directed this dross. Guess where he gets tingling feelings?
Movie: C-
Music: B+