Love Again Review | S’il suffisait d’aimer

A lazy, misguided, and uninspired romance, Love Again proves that streaming services and Hallmark haven’t entirely cornered the market on poorly made, low aiming lovey-dovey content just yet. Disposable in nearly every way, Love Again – which is both an adaptation of a novel and a remake of a 2016 German film – is the type of missed connection/meet-cute yarn that has been done so much better so many times before that it will leave no impression whatsoever. That is, unless you’re a fan of its stars or singer Celine Dion, in which case, the basic charms of Love Again will last a whopping five to fifteen minutes, tops.

Successful children’s book author and illustrator Mira Ray (Priyanka Chopra-Jonas) has been in a prolonged depression for the past two years, spurned on by the sudden death of her longterm boyfriend (Arinze Kene). In the aftermath, Mira moves from her parents house in the suburbs to stay with her sister, Suzy (Sofia Barclay) in New York City. Crusty music journalist Rob Burns (Sam Heughan) has been in a prolonged depression for an indeterminate amount of time because he was dumped not too long before he was due to get married. He’s also annoyed at being forced into taking on a new phone exclusively for work and that his next assignment is to write a profile on a soon-to-be-touring Celine Dion. In an attempt to handle her grief in a healthier way, Mira starts sending loving, yearning texts to her deceased boyfriend’s old phone number, which – you guessed it – now belongs to Rob’s work phone. Rob is taken by what he reads, but never responds, instead preferring to admire Mira from afar before getting up the courage to speak with her in person.

Writer-director Jim Strouse (Grace is Gone, People Places Things) is clearly riffing on the likes of While You Were Sleeping and Sleepless in Seattle with this one, but Love Again is so handcuffed to formula that everything here is on autopilot. There’s nothing novel or original about this, and sometimes that’s not a terrible thing for this genre, but the film at least has to offer interesting characters, situations, and some degree of personality or warmth. Love Again is directed with all the style and panache of monochromatic wallpaper. You know a movie is in trouble when even the usually reliable setting of New York City – the most personality filled metropolis in the world – comes across as a bland, boring place where nothing too exciting ever happens. When combined with cookie cutter characters, contrived scenarios, and few genuine moments of laughter or tears, Love Again amounts to a blank canvas that no one bothered to work on.

Another sign of trouble is when the worst scene in a bad movie comes in right at the beginning. The inciting incident that sets up Mira’s sadness and trauma is framed in the most jarring, unintentionally hilarious way. Truth be told, it’s the only big laugh in the entirety of Love Again, and it’s a scene that’s in no way meant to be funny. Nothing that follows that is as terribly mounted as the opening, but Strouse can’t figure out any way to dig the film out of the early hole it has dug for itself. From there we’re left with a film that can’t turn Mira’s tragic backstory into something empowering, and a running time that mostly consists of the female lead trying and failing to get back into the dating scene, while the male lead acts like a low-key stalker. I guess nothing says romance like gaslighting these days, which is probably why Rob is able to get Celine Dion to help with his charade.

A big part of romances comes down to chemistry. Does the viewer like these characters, and do they want to see these people end up together? In the case of Love Again, the answers to those questions are “one of them is cool” and “hard no.” Chopra-Jonas has a lot of charisma and likability, but while she inarguably tries harder than anyone else in the film, there’s nothing she can do to make Love Again work. Her chemistry with Heughan is non-existent because he proves to be a charisma and energy vacuum. There’s nothing charming about Rob, with a personality that ranges from boring at the best of times to outright creep at the worst. It’s a flat out bad romantic leading performance, marred further by the fact that the material does no favours for anyone. At least Strouse got the memo that all of these movies have to have good actors playing a bunch of quirky characters around the periphery. Chopra-Jonas and Heughan have more chemistry with the actors playing their friends and family than they do with each other. (This includes Heughan’s scenes opposite Dion, and a scene where Chopra-Jonas goes on a blind date with an actor providing a cameo that will shock absolutely no one.)

As for the heavily publicized participation of Celine Dion – who, as the film likes to point out loudly and repeatedly, is in the midst renewed interest – it’s not a great look. Dion comes across like kind of a jerk; a megastar without a shred of humility who treats many people in her orbit like trash because she knows she can get away with it. Even the budding, highly unlikely friendship between the singer and the reporter covering her is steeped in negativity and put downs. She’s always making it about herself in all of her scene, and the film never fully justifies the approach by the end. Everything about Dion’s participation is handled like a curious afterthought. She’s not much of an actor, and her attempts to talk about her own sense of loss in the context of this storyline feels exploitative and ill fitting. It’s a bad look all around for her, but fans who just like the sight of Dion in anything likely won’t complain.

Love Again neither embraces nor subverts the cliches it has been built upon. It simply lets all of them sit there and simmer as if that’s enough. It’s a film so limp that it unconsciously shows contempt for its audience. “You want some slop? Here’s some slop. We don’t care if you enjoy it. You’re here now. Isn’t that enough?” Some romances can be both crappy and enjoyable at the same time because they have a gentleness of spirit, likeable and relatable characters, and the conviction to carry through on its charming, low aiming ideas. Love Again is not one of those romances. It’s just a bunch of white noise.

Love Again is now playing in theatres everywhere.