Side Order of Love

Love Happens is like pizza.

I finally saw the movie today – sorry, Aaron Eckhart and Jennifer Aniston, but I have ears, and the buzz I’d heard…not so good.

Speaking of Aniston, and before I tell you why I think Love Happens is like pizza, what the what is up with her oeuvre? It’s all over the place, and not in an interesting, successful way.

I thought she’d finally come out on top, you know, following the success of Marley & Me and He’s Just Not That Into You, and go three for three.

I really believed she was on a roll, that the tabloids would stop writing her up as a victim of Brangelina. But after the little-seen-yet-loud bomb that was the indie Management (which is now out on DVD, and which I plan on renting…just to see for myself), and now this Seatle-set trifle, well…I’m not quite so sure.

I’m looking forward to renewing my membership to Team Aniston, though, and next year’s The Baster and The Bounty sound like they might hit, while her upcoming Pumas and Goree Girls sound equally promising.

But, anyway…about the movie being like pizza.

I say that because it is chee-say! I find that absolutely enjoyable every now and then, but even I can admit pizza’s filling, not nourishing.

I thought this was supposed to be a rom-com. Instead I got a subpar weepy about a reluctant self-help book author on the brink of a major multimedia deal who still hasn’t made peace with his wife’s passing three years, and a florist who’s emotionally bruised by the bad men she seems to fall for time after time.

They meet awkward, and…connection happens.

I’m not too fond of movies that ask their audience to believe that two people can fall in love with each other over the course of a weekend, so imagine my cringe when I realized this little number was asking precisely that of me. Connecting I buy, but not falling.

If the writers had fleshed out these people, Aniston’s character especially, more, then perhaps – perhaps! – I would’ve bitten.

But Eckhart’s Burke Ryan (uhh, who reversed his name?) comes off hack-y, and Aniston’s lovely, perfectly made up Eloise comes off as the neediest girl in the Emerald City.

Love Happens, but it doesn’t have to happen to you unless you’re in bed sick with the flu later this season and you need a so-so rental to pass the time.

My Rating *1/2

Photo: Universal Pictures.