One dull Saturday night during my second bachelorhood, I decided to explore the world of Internet personals. I logged on to Yahoo, created a profile, and skeptically clicked the “random” button on the main page. Up popped a picture of a stunning brunette. Today, that woman is my wife.
What if the computer algorithm that randomly chose my wife’s picture had selected another photograph? Where would I be today? Were we meant to be married or did happenstance bring us together?
When audiences meet Leo and Paige in “The Vow,” the couple is clearly in love. They come out of a Chicago concert hall, look at the fresh snow, and then hold each other tightly on their way to their car. On the ride home, he mutilates a Meatloaf song, which makes her laugh, and then they stop at a red light on a backstreet, where she makes the kind of proposal about which most men only dream. As she unlatches her seat belt, a truck plows into the back of their car, and her head shatters the windshield as she exits the vehicle.
When Paige wakes up from a coma several weeks later, she sees Leo in scrubs and thinks he’s her doctor.
Her recovery is slow. One day, when Leo arrives to visit her, a nurse tells him they’ve moved her to the VIP wing. When he enters her room, he sees strangers hovering over her. I can think of worse circumstances under which to meet mom and dad, but not many.
Before Paige met Leo in a parking permit line, she had made several dramatic changes in her life. She had quit law school, moved to the city, become an artist, cut off her parents and broken her engagement to a man named Jeremy. In essence, she had abandoned the life other people had carved out for her, made her own way in the world, and then met Leo.
The accident erased all of that. When she regains consciousness, the last thing she remembers is being in love with Jeremy.
This creates a dilemma for Paige. Does she slip back into the life she discarded, or does she try to rediscover her husband? Her parents are all too happy to arrange for her to move back home, return to law school and rekindle her relationship with Jeremy. “This is a second chance for you to get your life right,” her father tells her.
Meanwhile, Leo wonders how he can cross the gulf that separates him from the woman he held so tightly as he walked out of the concert hall.
“The Vow” is a sweet, earnest romantic drama made up of the moments that would rise naturally out of the situation I have described. I liked the humor, which is genuine and smart. The scene in which a naked Leo casually walks past a shocked Paige got a huge laugh, but also emphasized the emotional distance between the two characters. I liked the tender moments, such as when Leo takes Paige on a tour of their life. And I liked that the script does not make things easy for the couple or the audience, but keeps everyone wondering until the final scene.
Above all, I liked Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams, good actors who have a palpable chemistry that convinced me Leo and Paige belong together.
The only sour notes in this otherwise capably composed piece of music are the supporting characters. Paige’s parents and Jeremy come across as stock villains, and the scenes that involve Leo talking with a group of his friends are awkward and out of place, as though they were inserted to give Leo a way to voice his thoughts.
“The Vow” explores the question I asked at the beginning of this review: Are some people destined to be together, or is life merely a series of random moments, some of which have enough impact to change the direction in which we’re traveling? A good movie allows people to make up their own minds. It also entertains viewers as they ponder the mysteries of life. “The Vow” does both.
Rated PG-13 for an accident scene, sexual content, partial nudity and some language. Three stars out of four. Email David Laprad at dlaprad@hamiltoncountyherald.com.