I may not be a filmmaker, but I don’t think it should really be that hard to create a good romantic comedy. And I’m not saying that because the rom-com genre is “lesser than” other genres or so “simplistic” that it can’t be hard to create something “meaningless.”
No, no — on the contrary, I love a good rom-com. And that’s why I know it shouldn’t be hard to create one: because so many good ones have been made in the past. From “You’ve Got Mail” to “Clueless” to “How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” rom-com history has been made, time and time again. Those classics are the movies that people all over the world turn to in their times of need, cuddled under blankets with popcorn or ice cream as their staunch companions. Older stories or more modern ones — it doesn’t matter. As long as you have the heart, you have the movie.
“Love Again” does not have the heart.
Priyanka Chopra Jonas (“Baywatch”) stars as Mira, a woman who’s having a hard time with love after the death of her boyfriend. In theory, that would make her an almost instantly sympathetic character. However, the opening scene of the movie features Mira and her boyfriend John (Arinzé Kene, “The Pass”) just seconds before his untimely death (he gets hit by a car in broad daylight right in front of her; I am not making this up). The few seconds of their relationship that viewers see are not enough to offset the absurdity of John’s death, especially considering the sheer lack of emotion gracing Mira’s face as he died. In fact, had we never met John, never seen Mira’s lack of reaction to his death, we might have been better off — she might have been a more believable mourner. But that’s not the case. In short, the movie starts off poorly and doesn’t get much better.
The film picks up two years after John’s death, with Mira deciding to text him as her way of coping with his death. Enter the plot: Rob Burns (Sam Heughan, “Outlander”), a music journalist, starts getting mysterious texts to his new work phone. We’ve got all the makings of a rom-com, sure, but it doesn’t hit. It doesn’t work.
A good rom-com needs two characters that are easy to root for, both separately and together. Mira and Rob are both shockingly one-dimensional characters individually and have zero chemistry, making them similarly uninteresting as a couple. This feels like such a disappointment, such a failure, on the part of the filmmakers — how can you make a rom-com with a couple that has zero chemistry? The main thing they bond over is sneakers. … That’s what half their conversations are about. Not to mention, their first interaction takes place an hour into the film, ensuring that there simply isn’t enough time to see them together for the audience to find them believable.
One of the only shining moments in the movie is when, out of nowhere, Priyanka Chopra Jonas’ real-life husband makes a cameo. Yes, Nick Jonas (“Camp Rock”) appears in this movie. He plays a guy that Mira meets on a dating app, and he’s a terrible date, going so far as looking for a new girl on his dating app even as they sit in the car together. It’s not really even his character that’s funny, though, so much as the fact that this married couple is depicting a pair of characters who could not be more wrong for each other. The context of their real marriage within this not-so-romantic movie is a point of hilarity — I’ll give it that much.
Besides that, there isn’t much else of humor, much less substance, in the movie. Céline Dion (“Muppets Most Wanted”) plays herself in what is truly a bizarrely large role for such a weak film; she serves as a sort of love guru for Rob, offering sage advice and wisdom of the heart when he needs it most. Dion isn’t bad at all, but her presence and role just feel random and out of place. Her songs do offer some moments of brief respite in a movie that is otherwise uninteresting at best and mind-numbing at worst.
The credits are actually the best part, with the actors all dramatically lip-syncing to Dion’s hit “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now.” Heughan even appears on a hillside wearing an “I Heart Céline” shirt and a matching kilt. Seriously, I’m not making this up.
In short — don’t go see “Love Again.” There are so many better offerings in the rom-com genre that deserve love, respect, admiration and most importantly, your time.
And look, if you just want a healthy dose of Céline Dion, stream “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now.” Don’t put yourself through watching this film. It’s just not worth it.
Daily Arts Writer Sabriya Imami can be reached at simami@umich.edu.