The Vow
Cast: Rachel Mcadams, Channing Tatum, Scott Speedman
Director: Michael Sucsy
Classification: 10 LMA
Running time: 109 minutes
Rating: ***
Imagine being in love, then getting married, only to have it all vanish in a second because of amnesia, then having to try and win back that same love all over again. That’s what happens here.
No, The Vow is not based on a Nicholas Sparks book, as I thought, nor does it unfold like one.
The opening scene saying it’s “inspired by true events” makes one immediately intrigued… however, soon deeply disappointed.
The plot of whether true love really conquers all comes into play. Rachel McAdams plays the wife, Paige, who starts off as a free-spirited, struggling artist trying to make it. Channing Tatum plays the husband, Leo. After a car accident, Paige ends up as her “former self”, a prissy law student daughter of a conservative wealthy family.
She has no recollection of Leo, nor the memory where she left that life which she hated and left for one with Leo. Now Leo has to pull out all the stops to get Paige to fall back in love with him again after she returns to her stuck-up socialite family, reverts to her law student life, and still harbours feelings for the idiot she left before meeting Leo.
All this drama of watching Leo suffer endlessly while Paige acts like a movie socialite, unfolds agonisingly. Every character is an excessive prototype. Paige’s parents (played by Sam Neill and Jessica Lange) have a hidden secret and want nothing more than their daughter back in their care.
Rich vs poor come into play as Leo fights to win back Paige’s affections. McAdams and Tatum are charming and talented actors, but this movie script does not do them justice at all.
The delivery of the characters is weak and over the top with emotions, with far-fetched scenes of anger and despair.
McAdams is lost in her doe-eyed confusion with a performance that is sadly disappointing given her stellar role in The Notebook. Tatum occasionally finds greater depths.
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