THE VOW

THE VOW
Written by Abby Kohn, Mark Silverstein and Jason Katims
Directed by Michael Sucsy
Starring Channing Tatum, Rachel McAdams and Scott Speedman


Leo: I vow to fiercely love you in all your forms, now and forever. I promise to never forget that this is a once in a lifetime love. 

I had immediately dismissed THE VOW from the moment I first saw the trailer. It seemed insipid to me and disturbingly manipulative. The charming and beautiful, Rachel McAdams, who incidentally starred in the mecca of romantic weepers such as this one, THE NOTEBOOK, gets into a car accident with her handsome husband (Channing Tatum) and forgets she ever knew the man, let alone loved him. It reeked of the dreaded, “Based on the beloved Nichols Sparks novel” to fall below the title, which I usually take to mean I should stay away. So what happened to change my mind and finally see THE VOW? I developed a mad crush on Channing Tatum; that’s what happened. (Thanks a lot, Steven Soderbergh!) Well, now that I’ve seen it, I’m both pleased and surprised to say that THE VOW is not only not based on a Nicholas Sparks novel, but that is was actually pretty compelling too.

Now, I didn’t realize this before, not that it would have done anything more to get me to see this in theatres, but THE VOW is based on a true story. Somewhere out there, there are two people who actually went through this. I doubt their lives were as well lit but this grounding in reality does a lot to anchor THE VOW, saving it from romantic improbability. I’m not sure whether the real Leo & Paige were quite as pretty as these two either but if they went through half of the turmoil this pair went through, their story will go down as one of the greats. Sure on film, it plays out as dramatic and overly romanticized but a good deal of credit is due Tatum and McAdams for bringing the characters’ most vulnerable fears to the surface. They each bravely give into this all consuming love and all devastating circumstance and their commitment sells the movie.

Michael Sucsy, a director who previously drew impressive performances from Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange in GREY GARDENS, seems to have a knack for making unique situations understandable and almost relatable. He can draw great sympathy from the viewer without having to lay it on too thick. It’s just thick enough, if you will. Somehow, despite all the gooeyness, I was able to see right through to the substance at the center of the film and feel their pain. What you’re left with in THE VOW is a man whose great love is always just outside his reach and a woman who knows she’s supposed to feel something monumental but can’t. I found myself not only rooting for them to find each other again but rather just for the kind of love these two felt for each other, the kind of love that admittedly seems to only exist in the movies, to live on as well. If it did, then maybe it can also survive off screen as well.

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS

Written and Directed by Woody Allen

Starring Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Marion Cotillard and Michael Sheen

Inez: The studios adore you; you’re in demand. Do you really want to give it all up just to struggle?

Every time I review a Woody Allen movie, it seems I address the same issues time and time again. This is likely because Allen always chooses to tackle the same themes – class, art and commerce, American values, inferiority and infidelity, to name but a few. Often times, he falls flat, which is entirely reasonable when one takes into account that he makes a movie every year, but once in a while, his recurring neurosis come together so perfectly, they reveal his true genius. MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, Allen’s 41^st feature film, embodies this culmination brilliantly and is perhaps his most enchanting film in years. It is unmistakably “Woody Allen” but for some cinephiles out there, that is cause for celebration and not reason to run away.

Allen opens MIDNIGHT IN PARIS the way he always does, with plain white titles on a black background and a plucky jazz track playing. Suddenly, he interrupts himself and goes into a montage of Paris postcard shots, spanning a day that sees all the sights, a heavy rain fall and the kind of charm that only an evening in Paris can provide. It isn’t that the montage itself isn’t also quintessentially Allen-esque that is striking; it is the interruption that announces that Allen is alert and making choices instead of just letting everything play out naturally. It also allows the viewer, or any remotely sentimental one anyway, to get fully sucked into the clichéd idea of Paris as the most romantic city in the world. The images themselves are stunning yet subtle, thanks to cinematographer, Darius Khondji (who has worked with Allen once before on ANYTHING ELSE, but we probably shouldn’t talk about that), allowing Paris to be its grand self and showing us very clearly how much Allen is in love with the city.

Owen Wilson is Gil, the Allen figurehead in this story (and a very suitable one at that). He is a successful Hollywood screenwriter who considers all his success to be built on the production of meaningless material. He and his fiancée, Inez (Rachel McAdams, who does materialistic and shallow all too well) find themselves in Paris on her parents’ dime, just as he has decided to try his hand at writing a novel in hopes of achieving a more respectable level of artistry. Their priorities are clearly at odds; she prefers to go out and party while he prefers to soak in the city’s elegance. More importantly, she is of the moment and he cannot help but long for a simpler time, when life was rich and not empty like the constantly moving present. Then one night, Gil gets exactly what he has been longing for. He is mysteriously whisked away to the Paris of yesteryear when the clock strikes midnight. Here he meets artists he has always admired and finds romance he has only dreamed of. If only he wasn’t from another era.

It may sound a little “je ne sais quoi” but MIDNIGHT IN PARIS is truly a magical experience and meant to be absurdist and surreal. The cast is delightful, from Marion Cotillard as Gil’s other world love interest to Michael Sheen as the pedantic windbag archetype Allen loves to mock so much. Paris, past and present, also presents Allen with an opportunity to showcase exquisite production designs and lovely costume pieces. The literary references may go above some heads but aside from that, it is practically impossible not to get caught up in the glamour of it all. Despite all of this allure though, what most distinguishes this work from so much of Allen’s previous work, is Allen’s shift towards resolution. Infamous for being trapped by the past, Allen now moves towards letting go of his illusions of the past, allowing for a catharsis that his films rarely ever achieve.