The Vow

Indian Express Ratings:*1/2

A HUSBAND trying to win back his wife who has lost her memory should,hopefully,have more to say than this: “Impact… that moment of impact… that changes everything… everything.” Leo (Tatum) tells us this not once or twice but at least four times. Once when they get hit by a truck (which causes her the brain injury); two when they see each other the first time at an airport; third when she hugs her father; and fourth when she walks towards him smiling in the snow. Leo,we gather,isn’t a man of many words.

Perhaps the wife is then. But no,Paige is more content smiling the big McAdams smile that shows no sign of wearing thin even under the strain of a collapsing relationship.

The result is a film ‘inspired by true events’,mushy in its very idea,that is content basking in the warm glow of romance than handling the heat of a true marriage. Tatum and McAdams never seem like a couple who have been married four years,both hot footing around each other like tentative lovers even beyond where the story puts them.

The plot itself is highly contrived,focusing on a lot that doesn’t matter — Paige’s high school friends for instance — and little on what does. She is remarkably nonchalant about giving Leo up to move back to her rich parents,who obviously disaprove of him,and to rejoin at her father’s bidding the law school she had given up.

Paige and Leo,one a law student-turned-modern art sculptor,the other the owner of a recording studio for the love of music,also seem to focus on all the wrong things,and give up for all the wrong reasons.

It must be nice to be able to forget a spouse once in a while. But,believe me,it isn’t this nice.

shalini.langer@expressindia.com