Love, Rosie

First of all i would not judge this film to strongly, since we're dealing with a sort of coming-of-age drama (although not being a real good excuse, right? producers..?).

When the drama starts of we land in a cliché high school, teenage drama with shy kissing and flat expositions of insecureness etc... The two protagonists are portrayed in their childhood. fair enough. but flat. really flat.

The initial moment of miscommunication between the two protagonists, which is supposed to serve as a foundation for the rest of the drama, is just one single moment of 'both-are-too-shy- to-speak-out-their-love'. It's just one moment, not very dramatic and way too thin to make them be insecure to each other for the rest of their twenties and thirties. From there they loose me...

Important moments, where drama could be cooking and ambivalent moments and intentions - which are the key element for drama - could be exposed, the writer just jumps over those moments and continues the story with only the consequences of that drama... and leaving me dissatisfied. It gives the film very irrational time-leaps. It's like me looking at my girlfriend saying: ...ehh...what just happened? Did i miss something? Contributing to this feeling is the horrible make-up. At some point the story takes a jump of 5 and guess what? Nobody changed. Literally. a few scenes further the make-up must have thought: 'shit, we forgot something!!' and suddenly, out of the blue, Collins has a few gray hairs behind the ears...

Altogether, this makes the flow of the movie slow and unbelievable. It makes the actors being mere puppets then initiators.

With that comes the very dissatisfying acting of Claflin and his love-affairs, as most of the other extra's. Collins stands alone and stands. She is, as far as i can judge, ready for a strong character drama. Promising lady!!

It was not bad. Some of the shots were either in weird lighting or slightly too close ups. The story line was good but honestly more scenes with Katie from both Alex and especially Rosie would have improved it. I mean for the most part she just pops up like of yeah she had a kid. Which to anyone with children or has cared for children knows that's not how life with kids is. Even being the godparent you're more involved than what the movie gave time for. The only interaction between Katie and Alex was towards the end of the movie which did do not make them feel close at all.

The acting was good, definitely no complaints with the casting. The location and set details were really good. The parallel between Rosie and Alex was a great visual aid in telling about their lives. The constant will they won't they was annoying but that's only because it's been overly done in ROM COMs. In this one however it was well done.

The near misses and all the cold feet moments felt true to life. Like that one moment everyone has experienced with they didn't just go for something they wanted. That was, in my opinion, the best part of this movie. I don't think I've ever seen a movie that captured those moments so damn well!

Based on the 2004 romance novel 'Where Rainbows End' written by Cecilia Ahern, Love, Rosie is about a story of two people who were best friends since they were young. They've known each other for so long and they're absolutely meant for each other, but could never have the courage to admit that they have strong feelings for each other. Furthermore, life is not always how we expect or want it to be, as various unforeseen circumstances or misunderstandings continuously keeps them apart from each other.

Love, Rosie have the same typical flaws that many romantic drama comedies have: several unavoidable clichés and contrivances, a predictable ending. However, as in all romantic comedies, it's the whole journey that truly matters. The film takes the audience through the ups and downs of their relationships and how it affects their friendship over the years. Things didn't happen the way you expected them to be on some occasions, which is rather surprising and refreshing at the same time. The film is filled with occasionally nice witty jokes and heartwarming moments, combine with charming, likable performances from the lead characters. The two leads have great chemistry on screen and it gives the believable feeling that they've known each other for years.

There's a real genuine, non-manipulative, non-domineering relationship between the leads as we witness several loving, selfless acts on both sides when tragedy strikes one of them. However, I have to admit that there's a rather unrealistic depiction about this "friendship" - men and women can't be close friends because the sex part always gets in the way (A famous quote from another romantic comedy film, When Harry Meets Sally...). In reality, it's virtually impossible that a beautiful, attractive young lady can be close friends with a strikingly handsome man without hardly any sexual tension at all, especially when both of them are heterosexuals and they've never think of each other as siblings either.

Overall, the film succeeds in finding the heart and soul for its characters for the audience to relate with, despite its shortcomings. It's a lovely, heartfelt film that doesn't disappoint and it's well worth a watch.

Rating: 7.5/10 http://yjcool.blogspot.com/2014/11/movie-review-love-rosie.html

This is my first review ever, specifically to WARN anyone who looks for some easy entertainment but still values some originality or lesson learned.

For the cute premise of best friends, "soulmates", and "the one who got away", the leads' acting and the chemistry is acceptable. They, especially Collins, are attractive, charming, and likable on screen. Same goes for the set and interior design choices-which I focused on heavily while watching, because something's gotta give.

Right at the beginning, you sense that the pacing is off. A lot of lazy and some confusing editing choices. The score is always too on the nose. Even through numerous major life events, the main and supporting characters stay shallow, one-dimensional, and unreal, making it hard to care about anybody. The dialogue and story of the script are entirely cliché, even for the lovely romance genre, as well as devoid of any nuance, subtlety, cleverness or originality. There is hardly any reason for the supposed "deep" platonic or romantic connection presented. After a teenager's worth of years, every character remained unrealistically childish. The characters' repeated, ridiculous choices made me root against them after a while for poetic justice as some kind of payoff.

And, weirdly, hardly any humor at all. The closer you look, the more annoyed you get at the details.

I appreciate movies for the escape from reality. This one, however, made me want to run back to my responsible, childless and single life, which, even during its most boring phases, is more alluring, revealing, lively, fun, exciting, surprising and romantic than this "creative" output. All in all, a very grating and regrettable viewing experience.

To say this is predictable would be an understatement, but same thing goes for many action movies as far as predictability goes. Actually the fact that two people belong together is so painfully obvious you do wonder how they came up to fill over 100 minutes in here. Looks like a lot of things go wrong ... who'd have thought? Putting a scene from "now" at the beginning just to backtrack was a neat idea though.

Still some things happen, that might not be as expected. But such is life and the overall impression still says the same. The main actors/characters do their best to keep the tension high and the story going. Even when the script has them do things, they shouldn't be doing. An overall good romantic comedy, fun to watch as a couple