The heart never forgets

Film review: The Vow

MANILA, Philippines - What kind of love month would February be without a proper love story? We very well can’t have The Grey sullying our skies now, can we? The Vow comes to the rescue.

My wife and I sometimes perform the exercise of trying to remember how life was before we met each other. As with most of you couples out there, it’s pretty difficult to do so, of course. How could you have ever gone through the day without thinking of your significant other?

But here comes a valid question. If the mind forgets, would the heart remember? The Vow is a straightforward flick that answers this through the tale of Paige (Rachel McAdams) and Leo (Channing Tatum) — a newlywed couple whose life together is forever changed by an automobile accident that robs Paige of about five years of memory.

These lost years are additionally crucial because the period eclipses the entire duration of the couple’s time together.

So Leo has to rein in his obvious affection for Paige because his wife doesn’t remember him. He is as strange to her as the wedding ring she sees on her finger after she rouses from a coma. Patiently, Leo tries to help her recall the husband she can’t remember, and settle into a life she doesn’t recognize.

What Paige ironically does remember is her life before she met Leo — back when she was engaged to Jeremy (Scott Speedman). Further complicating everything is a suddenly omnipresent family that threatens to take her away from the life she has chosen with Leo. Speaking of which, additional star power is provided by Sam Shepard and a tragically old-looking Jessica Lange who play Paige’s parents.

Truthfully, The Vow isn’t Oscar material. The script doesn’t plumb the depths of human emotion and scale its summits. But what it does is proffer the wisdom of the heart and the unswerving design of a higher being.

We might as well play I Can’t Make You Love Me in the background — a lovely song first sung by Bonnie Raitt and re-made by the brilliant Adele.

This is not really the ultimate date movie, but The Vow makes a very strong case for it at the box office — raking in $41.2M thus far to nose past Safe House ($40.2M). It sure wouldn’t hurt to take your significant other to go see this movie that ought to reaffirm your faith in love.