A young and beautiful couple gets into an accident. While the wife (McAdams) lies unconscious in the hospital, her husband Leo (Tatum) reminisces about the happy moments they spent together. When she regains consciousness, it turns out that she has forgotten those moments, along with Leo and her love for him. The hero tries in vain to win her back and start all over again, but she is afraid of the unknown past life and, at the instigation of her father, files for divorce.
“The Vow” has almost everything necessary to become a very high-quality melodrama, no worse than “The Notebook” (which, by the way, also stars Rachel McAdams): from an interesting plot to beautiful landscapes. And Channing Tatum – the star of “Step Up” – in the role of Leo, although not as charming as Gosling, copes with the task of touchingly looking at McAdams and even more touchingly getting wet in the rain perfectly. The only drawback is that the plot about a husband who is not remembered by his wife fits perfectly into a short meter. Therefore, for about thirty minutes in the film, absolutely nothing happens: Paige’s emerging conflict with her parents comes to naught, her ex-boyfriend, who at first seemed like a villain, turns out to be a kind sweetheart, and the motives of social inequality are forgotten before they even arise.
From the official Facebook page of the film, you can send video postcards to friends, in which Channing Tatum languidly gives compliments.
The plot of “The Vow” is based on real events, although Kim Carpenter, the prototype of Leo, never owned a recording studio, but was a baseball coach.
This year we will see Tatum at least three more times: in the second “G.I. Joe”, in the comedy action movie “21 Jump Street” and in Steven Soderbergh’s “Magic Mike”.
The Sweetness Overload
On the one hand, it’s not bad: the whole film is only about love, but on the other hand, it’s not so much sweet as it is cloying, like chocolate candies that the main characters eat with waffles. There is not a single even slightly negative character and not a single real conflict in “The Vow”. But there is an incredibly beautiful blue wall (better only in “The King’s Speech”) and shots of the night Lake Michigan, which cover up large and, it seems, quite conscious, dramaturgical gaps. Not a single girl will be able to tear herself away from looking at these walls, rings and men. The creators of the film have well studied girlish weaknesses: after all, this is not only a touching movie about great and pure love, but also beautiful boxes with cute gifts, a favorite coffee shop with goodies, cats, wedding dresses, elegant bouquets and Tatum’s bare torso. “The Vow” collected everything and added a marriage proposal written with syrup on pancakes. Next to such abundance, even Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette” seems like a film for real men.
The Irresistible Charm of Cuteness
In fairness, it must be admitted that fatty pancakes and fluffy cats, even in the most concentrated doses, do not lose their appeal.