Review of The Vow (2012) by Mohammed B — 21 Jul 2014

I loved the trailer so expected the film to be total shit - you could say I was pleasantly surprised and mildly disappointed. the film was pretty okay - the premise was very interesting but the film ultimately didn't live up to it and ended up being a bit tedious (pretty much 2 hours of channing tatum getting brutally rejected by rachel mcadams).

I think the film's biggest problem was that it didn't know what it wanted to be and as a result straddled between a sappy romance and a "real" drama. this was particularly problematic in terms of "viewership" because the film was strongly advertised as a sappy romance, which is NOT a bad thing at all - in fact that's what a lot of girls/women (including myself) who went to see it wanted, which is why they were left a bit disappointed when the film ended up not being very romantic at all.

in fact, it was more about rachel mcadams's life and the whole concept of "whatever will be will be" because even though she was completely thrown out of her life, and her life with channing tatum seemed to her an irreconcilable mistake, she eventually found her way back.

mcadams's real emotions and her confused navigation through her life just clashed completely with tatum's unrealistic romanticness - they were both good on their own but felt like they belonged in different films.

the cinematography had some beautiful moments, but again, it perpetuated that glowing, romantic filmic style that was not always followed in the film. I also love/hated how hipster they were - their house in brooklyn is like my dream home.