I kicked off my Valentine’s Day weekend by seeing the much anticipated love story The Vow at the Coronado Village Theater.
The film invites audiences into the very private and intimate relationship of Paige (played by the goddess-like Rachel McAdams) and Leo (starring current heart-throb Channing Tatum).
Taking place in modern day Chicago, the story starts off giving movie-goers a feel for the way the two love birds, Paige and Leo, met unexpectedly. The plot briskly illustrates how the couple came to fall in love and how their lives began to seamlessly mesh into one. In one scene the couple is eating at a quaint, quirky, whole-in-the-wall café, gazing into each other’s eyes, and the next shows the couple deciding to move in together over a heaping plate of homemade pancakes.
One can see the tangible, inevitable chemistry between the inseparable twosome and their shared love for art, music and an organic lifestyle. Living in an old, industrial-like apartment covered in vibrant, eccentric décor seeming collected from travels as well as a few yard sales, makes it clear that Paige and Leo have a very bohemian lifestyle.
After being introduced to the trendy and romance-filled life Paige set up for herself, there is a sudden, detrimental tragedy (this disaster literally takes place ten minutes into the movie). One night while driving around in their vintage car they collide with a giant truck. The love-struck couple is injured, however, Paige suffers a brain injury that removes all memory of her life after her first year of law school to the present.
After the accident, Paige is convinced that she is a clean cut, straight edge, collared shirt-wearing law student. But at the hospital she learns that she is actually married to Leo, a sweet-eyed hunk who she couldn’t stand to be apart from before the accident, and married him in a museum without official permission from the mangers. She is mystified when she also finds out she lives in a shabby-chic apartment in the city, produces art sculptures in her spare time, and has a rather large tattoo on her back.
The remainder of the movie takes us through the frustrating buffering period while Leo tries to help Paige remember her life after law school. It is irking to see Leo be so patient and accepting of the situation Paige is in; she is set on thinking she never chose to live such a carefree lifestyle and instead wants to go back to being a cookie-cutter, wealthy lawyer. During this time, Leo is determined to make Paige remember how much they loved each other. He tries everything to ignite her memories about their previous married life. However, during Leo’s battle to win Paige’s heart back, he also has to overcome her overprotective, high-end, up-tight parents who want to take Paige back into the family’s luxurious care. They repeatedly try to tell Leo to give up and realize Paige doesn’t love him anymore and doesn’t want to go back to that life.
Even though watching Paige decide whether she wants to choose between going back to her life as a passionate free-spirit or a preppy, refined girl is innerving, her final decision surely pleases the viewer.
I asked Rosie Nolan, a Coronado High School student, what she thought about the movie and she said, “I loved it! It was very pleasing to the eye and heart. However, it got a little cheesy a few times!”
This is the perfect love story for the Valentine’s week. If you are one for the sappy, blissful, heart-warming tales, this eye-candy filled flick is for you!
Length: 1 hour, 44 min
Starring: Rachel McAdams, Channing Tatum and Sam Neill
Rating: PG-13
Village Theatre movie times available here.
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