Love Happens

Does art imitate life or vice versa? It's hard to tell with Jennifer Aniston's new romantic drama, which is almost as disastrous as the tabloids' chronicles of her off-screen unlucky-in-love life. Why draw the obvious similarity? Because of the wry observation of her friend Marty (Judy Greer): “You tend to fall for these guys with expiration dates right on their foreheads.” This time, it's self-help author/psychologist Dr. Burke Ryan (Aaron Eckhart), who arrives in Seattle to teach an “A-OK! A Path Through Grief” seminar and, literally, bumps into Eloise Chandler (Aniston), a floral designer, in the hallway of the hotel where he's speaking. Burke's conflicted backstory is that he lost his wife in a car accident three years earlier and has since become a self-proclaimed “expert” on sorrow—except that he hasn't healed himself (although he eventually makes peace with his tough-guy Marine father-in-law, played by Martin Sheen). Nevertheless, in a grotesquely maudlin manner, he deals with an assortment of mourners—including a widow who baked her husband's ashes into cookies and a skeptical father/contractor whose 12-year-old son snapped his spine working on his construction site. Wading through a script filled with clichés co-written by Mike Thompson and debut director Brandon Camp, Aniston trades on her quirky, Friends-honed likeability, while Eckhart vainly strives for credibility. Not recommended. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include audio commentary (by director/co-writer Brandon Camp, producer/co-writer Mike Thompson, and executive producer Richard Solomon), deleted scenes (13 min.), a “Giving Romance a New Look” visual effects featurette (3 min.), and trailers. Exclusive to the Blu-ray version is the BD-Live function. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a disappointing film.] (S. Granger)