Love and Timing
Rosie (Lily Collins) and Alex (Sam Claflin) have been best friends since they were 5 but a forgotten kiss on Rosie's drunken 18th birthday when she ended up in hospital leads to a chain of events. As the years pass by it is becomes clear to Rosie that her friendship with Alex is more than it once was and it also occurs to Alex that his feelings for Rosie are greater than they once were. But every time each other plan to act on their feelings some thing always crops up to intervene.
Reading the synopsis for "Love, Rosie" before watching it and I will admit I thought to myself that this was going to be just another one of those near miss romantic comedies which there have been quite a few of over the years. As such in typical fashion when Rosie is ready to tell Alex how she feels about him he is in a relationship and vice versa. Okay it is not as simple as that because we have a chain of events where a forgotten kiss leads to someone else being asked to the prom and a one night stand which changes everything but it is still a romantic comedy of near romantic misses.
But I have to give praise to director Christian Ditter because in "Love, Rosie" he has delivered a surprisingly engaging romantic comedy which gives us this familiar but evolving romantic storyline and intersperses it with some comic moments. It simply comes together in this smooth way with Ditter using a variety of familiar songs to take us on that journey with some songs which for some will remind them off their youth whilst there are some songs which will remind some of other romantic comedies which has a nice effect on the feel of the movie.
But of course there is Lily Collins and Sam Claflin who deliver these quite typical romantic comedy characters but mix it up so whilst at times they look like they are having a laugh there is also a touching side to the way they interact. And the looks which Claflin delivers as Alex when ever Rosie sees him with another woman are so wonderfully telling of his character's true feelings and sense of awkwardness that you do buy in to this romance. The only one negative is that with "Love, Rosie" being a movie which covers a good 12 years in the character's lives I didn't quite believe they looked the right ages but it is a minor issue.
What this all boils down to is that I ended up pleasantly surprised by "Love, Rosie" as I had expected a routine romantic comedy with a near miss storyline but what I got was a lot more and credit goes to all those involved for delivering something which when it finished I thought to myself I would like to watch again.
