Love, Rosie (2014)

(On Cable TV, November 2016) Anyone expecting Love, Rosie to remain a cute teen romantic comedy is in for a rough first few minutes, as the film boldly tackles missed opportunities, impulsive sex and an unwanted pregnancy that completely changes the protagonist’s life. Much of the rest follows according to the predictable frustration of seeing the film’s two romantic heroes comes close to consummating their love, but never quite managing to do so. Lily Collins stars, convincingly portraying a woman over eighteen years and numerous life changes. The highlight of the film may be the heartwarming relationship that the heroine has with her daughter. Otherwise, much of the story is a predictable cavalcade of near-romantic misses, intentionally frustrating until the big happy ending. Some of the humour goes a bit heavy on the humiliation of the heroine. The same characters pop up too often over the eighteen years of the story but really—who cares, it’s a romance film. Designed to be sappy and relatively successful in achieving its objectives, Love, Rosie doesn’t reach for the top of its category, but should manage to make its audience happy.