Checked out the one actual Valentines Day movie released on actual Valentines Days: The Photograph. This flick is the real deal as far as romance movies go. Not a romantic comedy… just a movie about adult humans meeting and falling in love.
The Photograph is a multi-generational movie. It starts in 2020 with a New York reporter going down to Louisianan to interview people for… well… it’s never quite clear (something about Katrina and the BP Oil Spill). But he stumbles upon an older man with photographs that he decides to follow-up on. Back in NYC, he meets the daughter of the photographer. They hit it off and the movie follows their blooming love story while also flashing back to her mom in the 1980s and how she fell for a man but ultimately decided to follow her dreams in the big city.
It’s a little convoluted and it sometimes begs the question why this movie has to follow these two love stories. It also bounces seemingly randomly from the past to the future but never in a way that completely loses the viewer. For a long stretch of the movie, I wasn’t sure WHY I was watching two stories or, really, any of these characters at all. They aren’t the most compelling individuals but they do have chemistry and they slowly grow on you as their relationships evolve. And, ultimately, the stories do come together thematically.
What I’m really saying here is that this is a movie about adults having a realistic romance. It’s not a silly romantic comedy with goofy characters and unrealistic plot twists and it’s not a melodramatic soap opera with silly overwrought drama. It all feels real… real people in real situations who you root for to get together. It’s a good old-fashioned romance, I guess.
I enjoyed the actors and their chemistry even if the progress of the movie sometimes had me antsy. But that’s my partial limitation, fully expecting the movie was driving towards a telenovella level of drama. It’s not that movie and I respect that highly once the credits rolled. It’s a good watch if you are looking for something different from what gets released at the theaters.
Score: 82