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Valentine’s Day the holiday was honored on my part mostly with apathy, although there was a high point where someone slid Sweet Tarts underneath my door. But let’s face it, when you take the candy out of the equation, the number of holidays cooler than this one can be expressed exponentially. It was therefore kind of a humdinger when Valentine’s Day the movie was honored on my part with hands clasped over my heart and a big dorky grin on my face for the entirety of its two-hour-plus running time. Said grin was interspersed with guffaws at the innocuous jokes, bouts of applause for every climactic kissing scene and then coughs of embarrassment when I became remotely self-aware. Then back to the dorky grin.
I liked Valentine’s Day, and you can too! But before you rush off to the mall to have a look-see at this resplendent rom-com, I have to warn you: There are rules to follow if you want to have as much fun as I did. If you cannot follow the rules of the game, please don’t waste your ten dollars on this flick. It’s thanks to people like you that it’s getting universally panned. A 16 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes? How lucky it is that there are people like me to set those pundits straight.
Rule Number One: Expect no surprises. This is as straightforward a knockoff of Love Actually as you can get. The movie portrays a set of interspersed romantic narratives in Los Angeles, Calif., played out by a star-studded cast featuring Anne Hathaway, Julia Roberts, Patrick Dempsey and many others. These stories are hackneyed and contrived to a tee. The movie’s 2003 doppelganger, Love Actually, was hardly original by any means, but it made up for it by charming socks off left and right with a refined cast of Brits and some jolly Christmas cheer. Vis-a-vis the likes of Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson, George Lopez and Jessica Biel don’t stand a chance, and did I already mention that Feb. 14 kinda blows? Long story short, Valentine’s Day can’t hide its formulaic foils the way Love Actually could, but that’s okay. As long as you accept that what you see is what you get, with no unexpected plot twists or inversions of clichés to psyche you out, you’ll be fine.
Rule Number Two: Know that Valentine’s Day throws all subtlety out the window, and be okay with that. This movie tries very hard to be cutesie-poo, and is often overbearingly sappy, shallow, sentimental, sugarcoated and just plain silly. There’s a romantic sub-plot about an adorable lovesick little kid that will make you want to vomit. But I appeal to all lovers of panda and laughing baby videos on Youtube: If you can appreciate the shallow cuteness of Valentine’s Day, there’s a chance you’ll actually become emotionally engaged in the narratives. Maybe you’ll empathize with the story of two high schoolers trying to lose their virginity together, or perhaps you’ll feel concern when the foundation of a marriage is shaken by an admission of infidelity.
Rule Number Three: See this movie with other people. This columnist went with six of his closest compadres, and he couldn’t have imagined it any other way. To have seen it alone would have just made the entire experience sort of depressing. It didn’t hurt that the theater was filled to the brim with ardent theatergoers. When the lights dimmed and the opening credits flashed on the screen, there was audible chatter, snickers, popcorn-crunching and soda-slurping. It may sound obnoxious, but it was actually perfect: There was a tacit understanding between all that no one was here to watch art house cinema. We all abided by rules one and two, and enjoyed the hell out of Valentine’s Day. There was even applause at the very end of the movie. I kid you not.
So heed these rules three and Valentine’s Day will be well worth it. You’ll giggle at Taylor Swift’s subpar ability to play a ditz, ogle at Taylor Lautners crazy-sculpted bod, and then ponder over how cool it is that they’re in a movie together and that it’s a shame they broke up in real life. They were such a cute couple, and wholesome too. You’ll cry when Ashton Kutcher gets stone-cold dumped by Jessica Alba, then alternately get irked when Topher Grace is a stone cold douche to Anne Hathaway, who totally shouldn’t get treated that way because she’s a stone-cold babe (who cares if her nose is a little weird, I’ll take it.) And when all is said and done, maybe you’ll get reflective and wonder if Valentine’s Day the holiday maybe ain’t so bad after all. Some more Sweet Tarts would go a long way to change my mind, hint hint.
—Erik Lorenzsonn ’12 is writing a bi-weekly column on movies and their meanings. He is the Arts Editor.
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