Rachel McAdams loses her memory and has her handsome co-star attempt to bring it back. Sound familiar? The Vow has a premise slightly similar to The Notebook, except this time, Channing Tatum is McAdams' co-star instead of Ryan Gosling. And that's where this movie went wrong.
The Vow, which is based off of a true story, starts off with Paige Collins (McAdams)and Leo Collins (Tatum) as an obnoxiously cute married couple. They get into a car accident, and Paige does not remember Leo or that she hasn't spoken to her family in years.
In fact, she thinks that she's still engaged to her ex-fiancé, Jeremy (Scott Speedman) and enrolled in law school instead of owning her own artist's studio. She would rather go home to her rich family in the suburbs than move back into the city with the husband she can't remember.
Her parents are delighted that they have their old daughter back, especially because she has no recollection of any of their transgressions. Though Leo manages to convince her that moving back into her home will spark her memory, her parents are a main source of conflict throughout the movie. They succeed at pulling her back into her old world, as it is the only one that she remembers. Paige throws away her unique clothes for expensive dresses and pearls. She has no idea who her friends in the city are and instead turns to her sorority-esque friends who drink blueberry mojitos.
She doesn't understand why she is an artist and why she has thrown away her entire personality. Through all of this, Leo does his best to win her back, while having to deal with his job in the recording industry.
It is unsettling to see Tatum in his little nook in the city with all of his hipster friends. He doesn't exactly fit into their image. It would have made more sense to have cast Lucas Bryant, who plays Leo's friend Kyle, as Leo himself. He has a scruffy, smoldering attractiveness that would have fit perfectly into Leo's image as a musician struggling to pay the bills. It is easy to see Paige's parents looking at Bryant in disgust when they first meet him. After all, who wants their perfect daughter married to the bad boy in the city? Tatum comes off as more of a thug with his low-slung carpenter matched oddly worn with buffalo plaid shirts. Speaking of appearances, it would have been nice if Paige's ex-fiancé were slightly more handsome. Speedman only comes off as smarmy. Though that works with his stereotypical rich image, it is obvious that Paige can do better.
McAdams, however, does a stellar job of portraying the multiple personalities that her character has. She transforms seamlessly from the bubbly, giggly self that fits her perfectly to her preppy former self and adds in just enough frustration to explain her situation.
This is because McAdams has played these roles so well before. She knows how to draw her audience in and make them really believe her emotions. It was easy to sympathize with Paige even when she acted snobbish and icy towards Leo. It was apparent that she did not only lose her memory, but she lost her personality as well. Even though the storyline was a cliché, McAdams was able to effectively show how Paige eventually realizes that her life as the perfect daughter was not what she wanted after all.
Tatum does a good job acting like the lovesick husband who just wants his wife back and does not know how to deal with Paige's new life. He is only in his element when he stands up to Paige's father, Bill Thornton (Sam Neill), but especially when he punches Jeremy. This may only appear natural because Tatum will always be known as Tyler Gage from Step Up. While McAdams is able to pull off various personalities and actually, well, act, it is hard to see Tatum as anyone but the street dancer we know and love.
There was a good amount of shirtless Tatum but just not enough loving. While it makes sense that Paige and Leo cannot have the same kind of sex life as they did before the accident, it would have been a plus to have seen more affection and chemistry between the two of them. Instead. it seemed wrong that they would have sex at all, almost like cheating. All viewers got was a little bit of skinny dipping, some making out and jokes about bases. Paige and Leo barely managed to pull it together enough to mention the steamy voicemail that Leo played in front of Paige's parents after her accident.
While The Vow was based off of a true story, the way the movie came across was disappointing. There were too many stereotypical depictions, especially with the interactions between Paige and her family. It obsessed too much over the fact that you cannot be creative and go to law school, and worked less on the relationship between Paige and Leo, which resulted in an anticlimactic ending.
