Valentine’s Day

Hollywood’s answer to Love Actually, Valentine’s Day follows more than a dozen characters as they weave in and out of each others’ lives over the course of one particularly eventful instance of the eponymous holiday. There’s little doubt that Valentine’s Day benefits substantially from the cavalcade of stars assembled by director Garry Marshall, as the film’s deficiencies, of which there admittedly many, are ultimately easy enough to overlook primarily thanks to the efforts of an impressively charismatic cast that includes Anne Hathaway, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Garner, Taylor Lautner, and Julia Roberts. It’s just as clear that the emphasis on so many characters and storylines ensures that the movie suffers from a distinctly uneven sensibility, with the appeal of certain subplots outweighing others by a fairly large margin (eg Jamie Foxx’s ongoing exploits as a sports reporter on the hunt for love represents an obvious low point within the proceedings). The stop-and-go momentum that ensues isn’t quite as problematic as one might’ve feared, as the affecting nature of several of the movie’s narrative threads proves impossible to resist – with the storyline revolving around Ashton Kutcher’s recently-dumped florist providing the film with an unexpected emotional resonance. And while screenwriter Katherine Fugate’s reliance on the various conventions of the romcom genre is almost comically blatant – ie one can’t help but play a game of spot the cliche (there’s the fake break-up, here comes the race to the airport, etc, etc) – Valentine’s Day is, in the end, a breezy bit of escapist fare that’s as watchable as it is romantic.

*** out of ****