Love, Rosie (Blu-ray Review)

Starring: Sam Claflin, Lily Collins, Christian Cooke, Jaime Winstone
Director: Christian Ditter
Running Time: 102 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: March 3rd 2015

It’s interesting to see sometimes how different critic and audience reactions can be. Love, Rosie currently has a very good 7.4/10 rating on IMDB from audience votes, but an abysmal 21% on RottenTomatoes from critics.

When you watch the film you can understand the disparity. If you’re a movie aficionado the whole thing is rather tedious – it’s by-the-numbers  to the point of feeling like it was just spewed out of a machine. The characters we’ve seen 10,000 times before and while the idea of exploring whether people who’ve been friends since childhood can become a successful adult couple has potential, it’s handled in a way that’s doesn’t have a vaguely original idea. All that is anathema to critics but many audience members like it – after all it’s why places like McDonald’s are so successful, you know exactly what you’re going to get and there’s comfort in that, even if gourmands may hate it.

Rosie (Lily Collins) and Alex (Sam Claflin) have been best friends since they were kids. Although they have a few somewhat confused fumbles towards something more as teenagers, they find it difficult to figure out whether it’s just the strength of their friendship or if something more is developing. As they grow and start their adult lives, distance and the excitement of new experiences threaten to pull them apart, but they cannot deny their bond.

I would tell you what happens, but it won’t come as a shock to anyone, not least the characters whose travails are pretty slight and to be honest not that interesting. But that’s not the point of a film like this, as it’s supposed to be a bit like a comfortable blanket you wrap around yourself, where nothing is too harsh or difficult and you can have faith it will work out in the end.

On that score it’s fine, and to be fair Claflin and Collins both do their best with a rather flat script, but if you demand more than everything you’ve seen a billion times before from a movie, you’ll find it pretty dull.

Overall Verdict: If you just want a bit of true love never running smooth in a sweet but safe package, Love, Rosie will do fine, but everyone else will roll their eyes and find the whole thing tedious.

Reviewer: Tim Isaac