Director Michael Sucsy attempts to bring to life a storyline worthy of a Nicholas Sparks-esque film in his latest box office hit, “The Vow.” Unfortunately, the hit is a miss.
“The Vow” is the story of a young married couple living in Chicago. Paige (Rachel McAdams) is an aspiring sculptor and her husband, Leo (Channing Tatum), owns a recording studio. When they suffer a car accident one night, Paige suffers from severe head trauma, which results in the loss of the last five years of her memory.
The predictable events of the movie are a sore spot with the general audience. Though the storyline was original, viewers could tell what was coming around every turn. Even when events were thrown in to shake things up, they were resolved rather quickly, allowing the main events to retake their obvious course.
The film also does a poor job of using its time effectively. Several of the hospital scenes after the accident occupy a large amount of time in the movie. Though some of the scenes are necessary to explain Paige’s condition, many of them are redundant. The excessive focus on this portion of the movie took valuable time away from its lackluster climax.
Sucsy effectively portrays Paige and Leo’s relationship realistically, compared to the majority of romances depicted in many Hollywood films. The cute idiosyncrasies they have as a couple help to convince the audience their relationship is a plausible one.
The lack of resolution at the end of the movie is also aggravating, to say the least. The movie ends at a point where the viewers are forced to make their own assumptions on what happened to the main characters, not unlike “Inception.” However, “The Vow” lacked the quizzical quality “Inception” held throughout the movie. Unfortunately, this leads to viewers leaving the theater annoyed, rather than engaging in friendly debate amongst themselves.
“The Vow” is, like the last five years of Paige’s life, forgettable.