By Hannah Stewart, ’12, Contributor
Valentine’s Day is a movie about–you guessed it–Valentine’s Day. Featuring an all-star cast and set in Los Angeles, this movie covers a day in the lives of several characters whose lives are all connected, like He’s Just Not That in to You and Love Actually. Valentine’s Day is about love at all ages, ranging from an elementary school student with a crush to an elderly couple that has been together for decades.
As with any huge ensemble cast, there are hits and misses. Anne Hathaway shines as an assistant who becomes a phone sex operator to pay off her student loans, providing plenty of laughs. Bryce Robinson stands out as an innocent teacher’s pet who is eager to get a bouqet for his potential valentine. Ashton Kutcher unsurprisingly plays the adorable, scruffy florist who proposes to his work-obsessed girlfriend, and Jennifer Garner fell back into her safe good-girl role, albeit a character that gets sweet comedic revenge by the movie’s end. Kutcher and Garner portrayed their characters perfectly, but it’s because everyone has seen them in these roles before. Taylor Swift and Taylor Lautner were a sappy teenage couple with no storyline that didn’t add any depth to the movie, and maybe that was the point, but they easily could have been cut out. Swift, in her acting debut, looks forced and uncomfortable as a ditzy Valley Girl, too awkward to convincingly be a vacant teenager. Taylor Lautner hardly does any better. Even with a memorable cast in which every actor is famous in their own right, the others faded into the background. There is such a thing as too many stars, and this movie captures that perfectly.
Despite some casting setbacks and lack of originality, this movie is comedic gold. Valentine’s Day, which claims to be “a day in the life of love,” obviously has an element of romance- but the comedy is really what sets it apart from other movies. Chock-full of one-liners and hilariously awkward situations, everyone will laugh during this movie. Valentine’s Day is a sweet, witty, chick-flick with a happy ending for all, including a handful of cynical characters having a lackluster love life, the dumped, and those who are cheated on. I give it an A-.
Photo courtesy of valentinesdaymovie.com.