What Love Is

I have been curious about WHAT LOVE IS since 2019 because it stars some fine actors I follow and I love to give every movie a chance, including this that has 5,1. But when I saw it last January I could see why it has such a score.

Tom (Cuba Gooding jr) returns home the night before Valentine's Day only to find a letter outside the door and seeing his long term girlfriend leaving him. Soon Tom decides to invite his best friends Sal (Matthew Lillard), George (Sean Astin) and Ken (Mars Callahan, also the film's director) and spend most of the first half talking about women and their experiences. In the second part some women come and after a strip show they'll make our guys think like real men, and Tom will finally learn what love it (nice reference to the title).

At the beginning I was liking it but as it progressed it became so loud that I was even torn for the score to give when it was over. I especially disliked Lillard's character because he not only was loud, but said the crassest of things and the most absurd things (I can't even report them here because they'll violate IMDB standards). And towards the end it seemed confusing that Gooding' character had to learn what love is only after he is left by another woman with which he was trying during the evening.

Overall, a confusing mix of drama and comedy that certainly needed a re-write. Recommended only to fans of the stars of for folks with very low standards.

Who can say what love is? Maybe some could. This movie isn't trying to answer that. Just to see it from "a guy's perspective".

It feels more like a theatrical play than a movie. The acting is good in these terms. It has a very fast editing that surprisingly works because of the dialogs and the timing.

There are some truths in there, that's for sure, but it seems also like it serves some very old stereotypes. Also the female characters are obviously written by a clueless man and seem shallow.

Overall: Saw it in 2015. I know it didn't go well in terms of box -office, but if you can catch it on TV or on line, watch it. preferably with a female partner with.

I don't believe that What Love Is was a play before it was shot as a movie, yet I found it reminiscent of some stage play-turned-films I've seen. The main reasons are that it takes place primarily in one room, the dialog is very fast-paced, and emotions are high from the first moment and rarely drops.

In this sense, it's not terribly original. What's more is that the small plot line is pretty predictable. However, where this movie shines is in it's advice and the characters' heartfelt monologues. Perhaps it my male bias, but the men's part far outshone and impressed me than the women's scene. Each of the characters reminded me of one of my friends and although it's unlikely these friends would say the things they did, it's something that they would actually believe. For example, Matthew Lilliard's homophobic rant is probably not something he'd say aloud, but you know he would think it. And the other characters react pretty well, continuing the dialog until they each have their turn to chime in with their thoughts on love, sex and women.

The second and third acts aren't as good as the first, but there were a few gems that really got me, especially the gay man's sex advice (it's 99.9% correct) and Judy Tylor's (the dumb girl) thoughts on what love really is.

So the characters were interesting, the dialog was funny, but mostly it was the gems of wisdom of the characters that really made me think, made me laugh and made me cheer.

This is the movie to see if you want an idea of what love is from a guy's perspective!!! It was so funny, I highly recommend it to everyone. Awesome cast!!! Everyone was so cute. What love is, what love is, WHAT LOVE IS!!! YEAH!!! It's nice to see Cuba in this adorable role. My brother totally agrees with me that this is how guys think. It's so cute though to see that guys stress about this stuff too. The dialog was very well written. It's almost like the writer recorded the real conversations. I guess that's what love is. I'd love to see it again. The music was really good, too. I'm buying the soundtrack as soon as it comes out.

I have a sneaking suspicion that writer/director/actor Mars Callahan originally conceived this movie as a stage play - almost the entire movie takes place in one place, for one thing. But the stagy feeling of the enterprise is just a minor quibble compared to the real problems this movie suffers from. The previous user commenter used the word that I would best describe this movie - "exhausting". Everyone talks very quickly, and the editing is so rapid-paced that it makes a Russ Meyer movie look absolutely restrained. It's not just the speed of the words that hurt the movie, however - everyone in the movie comes across as unbelievably crude and obnoxious. No one is sympathetic or even interesting. The only scene in the movie that works is the last one, which is calmly acted and directed enough that it's interesting. Apart from that last scene, the only other praise I can give the movie is that despite its low budget, it is professionally lit and photographed.