What Love Is

This is the movie to see if you want an idea of what love is from a guy's perspective!!! It was so funny, I highly recommend it to everyone. Awesome cast!!! Everyone was so cute. What love is, what love is, WHAT LOVE IS!!! YEAH!!! It's nice to see Cuba in this adorable role. My brother totally agrees with me that this is how guys think. It's so cute though to see that guys stress about this stuff too. The dialog was very well written. It's almost like the writer recorded the real conversations. I guess that's what love is. I'd love to see it again. The music was really good, too. I'm buying the soundtrack as soon as it comes out.

Great actors in a script with far too much talk.

This was probably written to be a stage play, that's the entire feel of it.

Way too much chatter, non=stop.

All good actors but of course, Cuba and Gina shine.

Also way too much swearing and sex talk...far more than needed.

Gina and Cuba are just amazing.

I don't believe that What Love Is was a play before it was shot as a movie, yet I found it reminiscent of some stage play-turned-films I've seen. The main reasons are that it takes place primarily in one room, the dialog is very fast-paced, and emotions are high from the first moment and rarely drops.

In this sense, it's not terribly original. What's more is that the small plot line is pretty predictable. However, where this movie shines is in it's advice and the characters' heartfelt monologues. Perhaps it my male bias, but the men's part far outshone and impressed me than the women's scene. Each of the characters reminded me of one of my friends and although it's unlikely these friends would say the things they did, it's something that they would actually believe. For example, Matthew Lilliard's homophobic rant is probably not something he'd say aloud, but you know he would think it. And the other characters react pretty well, continuing the dialog until they each have their turn to chime in with their thoughts on love, sex and women.

The second and third acts aren't as good as the first, but there were a few gems that really got me, especially the gay man's sex advice (it's 99.9% correct) and Judy Tylor's (the dumb girl) thoughts on what love really is.

So the characters were interesting, the dialog was funny, but mostly it was the gems of wisdom of the characters that really made me think, made me laugh and made me cheer.

I have a sneaking suspicion that writer/director/actor Mars Callahan originally conceived this movie as a stage play - almost the entire movie takes place in one place, for one thing. But the stagy feeling of the enterprise is just a minor quibble compared to the real problems this movie suffers from. The previous user commenter used the word that I would best describe this movie - "exhausting". Everyone talks very quickly, and the editing is so rapid-paced that it makes a Russ Meyer movie look absolutely restrained. It's not just the speed of the words that hurt the movie, however - everyone in the movie comes across as unbelievably crude and obnoxious. No one is sympathetic or even interesting. The only scene in the movie that works is the last one, which is calmly acted and directed enough that it's interesting. Apart from that last scene, the only other praise I can give the movie is that despite its low budget, it is professionally lit and photographed.

What Love Is spins a great twist on the romantic comedy and turns the usual genre upside down on its head. Directed by Mars Callahan, this film has a great ensemble cast with stars, such as: Cuba Gooding Jr., Mathew Lillard, Sean Astin, Anne Heche, Andrew Daly, Gina Gershon, Tamala Jones, Jud Taylor, Shiri Appleby, Victoria Pratt and Terrance 'T.C.' Carson. The scenes in this film were great. It is a frank, unapologetic film that explains at its very core what Love truly means. Mathew Lillard was amazing as Sal, especially in the scene about monogamy, Sean Astin's character's diatribe about women is great, Andrew Daly's scenes with Mathew Lillard and Anne Heche are hilarious! It's a great Valentines Day movie for guys. I don't know how many times I remember having similar conversations with my friends about women just like these characters do in this film. The writing seems almost as if it were recorded. What Love Is is a laugh out loud, realistic riot that will keep you entertained and satisfied that you went to see what could be the best comedy of the year.