New to UK cinemas this week (released in the US last week) is the romantic comedy-drama, Love Again. The movie – written and directed by James C. Strouse – stars Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Sam Heughan, Russell Tovey, Omid Djalili, Lydia West, and Celine Dion, and follows the story of a young woman who learns to love again, following a tragic accident.
In the movie, Mira Ray is an author and illustrator who is in a relationship with her boyfriend, John. Things are going great between the two of them, and the pair couldn’t be happier, until tragedy strikes and John is killed by a drunk driver.
Devastated by her boyfriend’s death, Mira moves back home with her parents as she works through her grief, and she remains there for the next two years. But after being coaxed back into the city by her sister, Suzy, Mira begins going through John’s old possessions as a way of moving forward.
And with John at the forefront of her mind, Mira decides to send a text message to his old phone, as a way of speaking to him and expressing her feelings about how much she misses him. The next morning, Mira does the same thing again, and this continues over subsequent days.
But what Mira doesn’t know is John’s old phone number has been reassigned, and instead of the messages going into the great big phone network in the sky, they are instead going directly to journalist Rob Burns. Rob doesn’t quite know what to do about the messages, but for now he tries not to worry about them, as he is working on an assignment to write an article about singer, Celine Dion.
However, with the messages of grief and love coming through to his phone continuously, Rob decides he would like to meet this mysterious texter, who he is starting to fall in love with. But in order to do this, he is going to require some assistance from an expert in love, leading him to ask Celine Dion for help.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: If Rob is receiving text messages from Mira, and he becomes keen to meet her, why doesn’t he just text her straight away, or give her a quick call as soon as he receives the first couple of messages? Well, that ladies and gents is because if Rob did this, then there would be no story.
But don’t worry, this is all addressed in the movie, so it’s not a huge glaring plot hole. However, it is an example of the slightly daft writing in Love Again, which asks audiences to suspend disbelief a little bit early on, to set up what comes further down the track.
However, if you can go along with what’s presented in the film, then Love Again might win you over. This is a largely inoffensive film, which is fairly fluffy in places, and Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Sam Heughan are likeable enough in the lead roles of Mira and Rob, respectively.
To add to all this, the movie is filled with Celine Dion songs, occasional moments of comedy, and of course all the lovey-dovey stuff you’d expect in a picture like this. It’s not award-winning stuff by any stretch of the imagination, but it is perfectly serviceable.
As the story progresses, Rob does start to learn who Mira is and a romance blossoms. It’s all by the numbers stuff, and anyone who has watched a romantic comedy before will know where the story is headed, but once again, it’s nothing bad and there are a couple of nice moments.
You do get the feeling the film could benefit from an extra few minutes here and there, to add a bit more depth, but on the flipside, its 104-minute running time is about right. Dragging this story out much further would stretch it beyond its limitations.
As it stands, Love Again scrapes by. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it either, and I found it passable.
Love Again is very much the kind of movie that you’d watch on a wet Wednesday afternoon, when you just need something simple to give you a lift until the bad weather passes by. Some of the acting is questionable in places, and it is cheesier than a block of gorgonzola, but hey, I quite like a bit of cheese.
I’m aware that some critics have been quite hard on Love Again, and it is fair to say it’s not great – but it’s also not terrible either. Love Again is no worse than plenty of other rom-coms (Ticket to Paradise, Marry Me, etc), and if you’re a fan of this particular genre, then you will find it to be absolutely fine.
I expect it will come and go at the cinema, getting lost between Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and various other films that are grabbing audiences’ attention right now, but maybe it’ll do better on streaming. It certainly would seem a much better fit on Netflix or Prime Video, so perhaps once it leaves cinemas it’ll find the right audience.
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