Review by Doug Cooper
Stars Rachel MacAdams, Channing Tatum, Jessica Lange, Sam Neill, Jessica McNamee, Wendy Crewson, Tatiana Maslany,
Lucas Bryant, Scott Speedman, Joey Klein, Joe Cobden
Written by Abby Kohn, Marc Silverstein & Jason Katims
Certification UK 12A | US PG-13
Runtime 104 minutes
Directed by Michael Sucsy
MacAdams is such a charming and gifted performer it's a shame she hasn't yet found a project truly worthy of her talents. Insipid romantic dramas like this won't do her any favours. She's as watchable as ever though as artist Paige, still very much in love with her husband of four years, music producer Leo (Tatum). While canoodling in their car after a cinema visit one night, a lorry rams into them due to the snowy conditions, and Paige goes into a coma. After a period of time however, Leo is relieved to see her come out of it and slowly make progress to going back to her full self again. Except there's a catch.
While she regains full physical fitness it's discovered that she's lost her memory of the last four years. She has no recollection of Leo at all. But she can remember her thoroughbred parents (Neill and Lange) and formerly studying at law school. She can remember her well dressed friends and the smooth and smarmy businessman (Speedman) she used to be engaged to. Leo has his work cut out for him in trying to reinstate her memories of the more rebellious lifestyle she shared with him. He goes all out to make her fall in love with him again. Will she do so? Will you care?
Chances are you won't to be honest. This is a clunky and very moviesh dilemma, despite it being inspired by a true story, and it goes though its soapy paces in machine tooled fashion. It's plastic, inoffensive, smooth and bland. MacAdams and Tatum have charisma to spare but they struggle to give this mediocre drama any vitality. This is a movie for girls to see with their mothers. It's no more than tolerable - and a further example of why film actors should decamp to television. MacAdams and Tatum should try and find meaty projects on HBO, Showtime and the like. Wasting their talents on cinematic dross like this will do their careers no good at all.