‘Valentine’s Day’ movie review: pleasant ensemble rom-com from Garry Marshall

Garry Marshall’s Valentine’s Day is an adequate, pleasant-enough date movie, but it’s utterly unmemorable in almost every detail. I give it a lot of credit for being almost completely inoffensive – an increasingly rare aspect in recent mass market romantic comedy – but it’s so glossy and lightweight it barely even registers in the mind.

Most of it revolves around Reed Bennett (Ashton Kutcher), proprietor of an L.A. flower shop. The first thing he does when he wakes up on Valentine’s Day is propose to girlfriend Morley (Jessica Alba), who says yes – but something doesn’t quite seem right. 

Meanwhile, Reed’s friend Julia (Jennifer Garner) has her own V-Day worries, when surgeon boyfriend Harrison (Patrick Dempsey) leaves for work -and promptly drives home to his wife and children. Alphonso (George Lopez) provides some ethnic comedy relief out of Reed’s flower shop.

Then there’s businessman Holden (Bradley Cooper) and servicewoman Kate (Julia Roberts), who strike up a conversation, and a friendship, on a lengthy flight to L.A. And NFL quarterback Sean Jackson (Eric Dane), who seems to be spending V-Day alone while contemplating retirement, while agent Paula (Queen Latifah) and P.R. woman Kara (Jessica Biel) swarm around him. 

Sean’s segment has the best (and most surprising) payoff in the film, and Dane – one of lesser name brands among the cast – gives the best performance.

But wait! There’s more! Paula’s fill-in assistant Liz (Anne Hathaway) also makes a living as an “adult phone entertainer”, something that unknowing suitor Jason (Topher Grace) will eventually have to come to grips with. TV sports guy Kelvin (Jamie Foxx) is assigned to cover some lighter V-Day fare, against his will, by producer Susan (Kathy Bates). An elderly couple (Marshall standby Hector Elizondo and Shirley MacLaine) discover some secrets from their past.

And that’s not all: cute little fourth grader Edison (Bryce Robinson) stops into Reed’s shop to buy a dozen roses to impress the girl he loves. And two high school couples – Alex (Carter Jenkins) and Grace (Emma Roberts, Julia’s niece), and Willy (Tyler Lautner) and Felicia (Taylor Swift) have some breezy V-Day fun. These segments are easily the least in Valentine’s Day, a mom-and-dad fantasy view of high school romance.

I think that just about covers the main characters, though there’s a few more plot strands that tie them all together. In other words, there’s a lot going on here: about twenty stars in roles that would be leads in other films, in plot threads that would be a main narrative in other features. There’s so many characters here that you can tell they started to run out of decent names for them: Morley? Kelvin? Reminds me of an old Simpsons gag (Bort?)

Expectedly, none of them are done any kind of justice. Which is probably just as well, as towards the end most of them were starting to get on my nerves anyway. By my count, each storyline is given about 10-12 minutes of screen time, and then they’re cut up into segments that are about 2-3 minutes long apiece and mixed in with the rest of them. 

If only the film were directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and cut together out-of-order, 21 Grams style; that would have provided some interest.

There’s nothing really bad about Valentine’s Day, but nothing really good, either. Malnourishing would be the appropriate word. If you have any inclination to seeing it I daresay you won’t be disappointed, and if you’re dragged to it kicking and screaming you may be pleasantly diverted. Yawn.

It’s difficult to handle such a complicated narrative structure, and Marshall should be given some amount of credit for that; as lightweight as it is, Valentine’s Day may be his best film in twenty years, dating back to Frankie and Johnny and Pretty Woman. Given the L.A. setting and ensemble structure, I was thinking of Altman’s Short Cuts a few minutes into the film. Silly me.

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Jason Pirodsky

Jason Pirodsky has been writing about the Prague film scene and reviewing films in print and online media since 2005. A member of the Online Film Critics Society, you can also catch his musings on life in Prague at expats.cz and tips on mindfulness sourced from ancient principles at MaArtial.com.

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