Certificate: 12A
Running Time: 104 mins
UK Distributor: Sony
WHO’S IN LOVE AGAIN?
Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Sam Heughan, Céline Dion, Russell Tovey, Steve Oram, Omid Djalili, Sofia Barclay, Lydia West, Arinzé Kene, Celia Imrie, Nick Jonas
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
James C. Strouse (director, writer), Esther Hornstein, Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee (producers), Keegan DeWitt (composer), Andrew Dunn (cinematographer), Jesse Gordon (editor)
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
A journalist (Heughan) pursues the writer of love-filled texts (Chopra Jonas), with the help of Céline Dion (as herself)…
WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON LOVE AGAIN?
What is it with rom-coms lately feeling as though they’ve been manufactured entirely by soulless AI algorithms? I realise that Rye Lane has set a rather high bar for the rom-com genre as of late, but between Ghosted, One True Loves, and now Love Again, it seems like Hollywood is starting to take the familiar formula all too literally and leaving the most generic of structures to computers who, for all their technological prowess, lack the creative and imaginative minds of actual writers (who, incidentally, are currently striking in part because of this exact scenario).
Honestly, I feel like a piece of software right now too, because I’m being forced to parrot the exact same things that I said about Ghosted and One True Loves when describing Love Again: it’s a soulless, lifeless, and oddly lazy piece of work that feels like it was crafted entirely by computers rather than proper human beings, only this one somehow manages to outdo both others in being the most artificial of the lot.
A remake of the 2016 German film SMS für Dich – and no, before you ask, I don’t know how this version compares to the original – Love Again opens with children’s book illustrator Mira (Priyanka Chopra Jonas) watching in horror as her loving boyfriend John (Arinzé Kene) is suddenly off-screened to death, in that a car crashing sound effect signifies his sudden passing. Two years later, Mira is still in mourning, and in an attempt to move on from her grief she texts a series of passionate messages to his old phone number.
Unknown to her, however, the number has been reassigned to Rob (Sam Heughan), a music journalist who himself is dealing with a bitter break-up, and who finds himself captivated by Mira’s words, inspiring him to essentially stalk her by figuring out her whereabouts through the texts and meeting her through seemingly serendipitous circumstances.
Will the truth soon come out, and will this couple end up together when it does? If you’re not sure, then you’ve clearly never seen a romantic-comedy before.
It isn’t just that the plot to Love Again is incredibly predictable from the get-go, with some rather creepy overtones that do not make this match a suitable one (again, this man is stalking a woman he’s never met through a series of private texts he just happens to have received by accident). It’s not only that it covers just about every convention the genre has to offer, from the meet-cutes to the best friends whose lives seem to entirely revolve around the main characters’ love lives. It isn’t even simply that it has the tone and vibe of something you’d find on the Hallmark or Lifetime channels, or even direct to Netflix. It is that all of those things together feel like they have been mercilessly pushed through the machine so hard that the cogs and wheels are starting to shudder from the pressure, and out the other end has come something that no longer feels like it was crafted with actual human love or care.
Practically everything about Love Again feels artificially manufactured to insane levels (to where I’m even considering if I was too harsh on both Ghosted and One True Loves for calling out their own artifice), with every line of dialogue, piece of direction, acting choice, set decoration, costume, camera filter, editing trick and so on feeling as though not a shred of soul was put into them. It creates an awkwardly stilted atmosphere, because these actors have been given lines that no human with a basic understanding of human communication could possibly come up with, and have seemingly been directed to act like aliens who have stepped foot on planet Earth and have little to no idea about how its inhabitants are meant to interact with one another.
Similar to One True Loves, which lest we forget seemed to substitute someone’s backyard with the streets of Italy and China, it’s also weird with its locations, albeit perhaps not as much as One True Loves, but it’s still odd. The film is meant to be set in New York, but there’s something about the atmosphere, the climate, and even the presence of numerous local actors like Russell Tovey, Omid Djalili, Steve Oram, Celia Imrie and It’s a Sin’s Lydia West that clearly points to a large chunk of this film being shot in England instead. Of course, this isn’t the first instance where the UK has filled in for the US during shooting, but here it’s distracting how very un-New York the whole aesthetic feels, and just makes me think even more that very little thought went into preserving this particular illusion.
It’s exactly the same thing as those other recent rom-coms, in that this is a rom-com that feels like it was generated entirely by AI, one that has taken the most basic of conventions and put them into the most unimaginative and passion-free script possible. However, Love Again somehow comes across as more algorithmic and fake because nothing on-screen feels like there’s a hint of humanity, especially as it tries to conduct its own Turing test by adding little quirks to appear more human, namely having Céline Dion be the one to dish out the wise romantic advice to its leads.
Oh, did I forget to mention that Céline Dion is in this movie? That’s right, the French-Canadian music superstar has a major supporting part where she not only plays herself (remember, Heughan’s character is a music journalist, and he’s been assigned to do a puff piece on her, but she ends up giving sound romantic advice instead), but is also the provider of the film’s soundtrack, with hits like “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” and “All By Myself” working their way into the film’s diegesis along with concert clips over the ending credits with cast members lip-synching the words (why yes, she IS also an executive producer on this movie, funny you should ask).
The thing is, though, as shamelessly promotional and blatantly hero-worshipping as her presence is here, Dion is probably the only person involved in this production to actually seem human. She does have a presence here, and whenever she’s on-screen she does manage to liven up the otherwise sleepy atmosphere, even though it’s probably been manufactured to make Dion look as radiant and all-encompassing as possible, but at least it’s something that feels like it was decided upon by living people.
Everything else about Love Again, though, is as artificial as the software inside the computer I’m typing this review on. There’s no soul to it, no life, no passion, nothing to suggest a good time is to be had by any human being who watches it. If this is the way that rom-coms are going to be from now on, then thank God we had Rye Lane before this magnificent decline for the genre.
SO, TO SUM UP…
Love Again marks a new low for lazy, generic romantic-comedies that feel more manufactured and AI-crafted than the most basic Hallmark or Lifetime movie, with a shamelessly promotional supporting turn by Céline Dion being the one element to feel remotely human.
Love Again is now showing in cinemas nationwide
