Love, Rosie

As a fan of the original book "Where Rainbows End", I had been kind of disappointed when people told me that there are many differences between the novel and its adaption on the big screen. However, I changed my prejudice when I finally saw it myself. The movie is romantic, with beautiful-filmed scenes (I love the color throughout the whole movie), and moving. The music sounds good (gotta buy the soundtrack!) too. And I love Lily and Sam Claflin as Rosie and Alex, as you can really feel the chemistry between them from the very first minutes of the film. Perfect casting :) I don't care about how unreal the plot is. It just feels good watching a slice-of-life movie like this once in a while.

This is my first review ever, specifically to WARN anyone who looks for some easy entertainment but still values some originality or lesson learned.

For the cute premise of best friends, "soulmates", and "the one who got away", the leads' acting and the chemistry is acceptable. They, especially Collins, are attractive, charming, and likable on screen. Same goes for the set and interior design choices-which I focused on heavily while watching, because something's gotta give.

Right at the beginning, you sense that the pacing is off. A lot of lazy and some confusing editing choices. The score is always too on the nose. Even through numerous major life events, the main and supporting characters stay shallow, one-dimensional, and unreal, making it hard to care about anybody. The dialogue and story of the script are entirely cliché, even for the lovely romance genre, as well as devoid of any nuance, subtlety, cleverness or originality. There is hardly any reason for the supposed "deep" platonic or romantic connection presented. After a teenager's worth of years, every character remained unrealistically childish. The characters' repeated, ridiculous choices made me root against them after a while for poetic justice as some kind of payoff.

And, weirdly, hardly any humor at all. The closer you look, the more annoyed you get at the details.

I appreciate movies for the escape from reality. This one, however, made me want to run back to my responsible, childless and single life, which, even during its most boring phases, is more alluring, revealing, lively, fun, exciting, surprising and romantic than this "creative" output. All in all, a very grating and regrettable viewing experience.

Love, Rosie's leads Lily Collins and Sam Claflin add strength to this adaption that struggles to convert its story from paper to screen. They both hide their love for each other instead of biting the bullet and opening up to each other. They spend 12 years in awkward oblivion (apparently it's longer in the novel). They keeps secrets from each other, Alex's being marriage and Rosie's is pregnancy. Amongst the hardships and the inconceivable privacy are two souls who look and feel normal, never sloping into the ludicrous, always down-to-earth. There is chemistry behind the acting. They push their affections to the front, more so than most rom-com partners pull off. The story doesn't stand-out, the performances do. This is a film to fill up those rainy days and delve into a relationship if only you take the leap.

It was not bad. Some of the shots were either in weird lighting or slightly too close ups. The story line was good but honestly more scenes with Katie from both Alex and especially Rosie would have improved it. I mean for the most part she just pops up like of yeah she had a kid. Which to anyone with children or has cared for children knows that's not how life with kids is. Even being the godparent you're more involved than what the movie gave time for. The only interaction between Katie and Alex was towards the end of the movie which did do not make them feel close at all.

The acting was good, definitely no complaints with the casting. The location and set details were really good. The parallel between Rosie and Alex was a great visual aid in telling about their lives. The constant will they won't they was annoying but that's only because it's been overly done in ROM COMs. In this one however it was well done.

The near misses and all the cold feet moments felt true to life. Like that one moment everyone has experienced with they didn't just go for something they wanted. That was, in my opinion, the best part of this movie. I don't think I've ever seen a movie that captured those moments so damn well!

I love a romantic comedy as much as the next girl. I go in fully expecting the cheesiness and I'm okay with that. But "Love, Rosie" was brilliant!

Not only was it heartwarming, romantic and funny, it was dramatic with great moral lessons about friendship, family, honor, trust and responsibility.

I came out of the cinema thinking "Wow, that was really worth my money."

Lily Collins and Sam Clafin were both brilliant leads and they had heaps of chemistry together.

I would recommend this film to anyone as they will love it. Girls, have no fear of your boyfriend complaining about being dragged to a romcom after this one. I think even HE will be rooting for Rosie and Alex to get together.

10/10 stars. Can't wait for the DVD!