Valentine’s Day
There comes a moment in many director’s lives when film making becomes accountancy. Valentine’s Day is that moment.

Valentine’s Day – it’s a long old day.

There comes a moment in many director’s lives when film making becomes accountancy. Valentine’s Day is that moment.

Garry Marshall, director of Pretty Woman, Beaches and The Princess Diaries is no stranger to commercial success. But rarely have I seen such a shameless, no-holds-barred, grab-the-money-and-run, cash-in as Valentine’s Day. The soundtrack, the stars, the setting and the sunshine make this film feel like the longest washing powder commercial you’ve ever seen. Or Diet Coke advert. Or car commercial. The fact that it has been released just two days before the grand cash-fest that is Valentine’s Day, confirms that this is a film about profits, not performance.

But let’s talk about those performances anyway. The basic thrust of the film is that we, the audience, follow the Valentine’s Day in the life of an unlikely collection of LA residents as they wrestle with love, lust and loss. There’s the old couple, the high school couple, the young professional couple, the sports star, the florist, the teacher and so on and so boring. Almost all of these main characters are played by the sort of stellar Hollywood stars that can often carry the celebrity of an entire film: Julia Roberts, Jamie Foxx, Anne Hathaway, Ashton Kutcher, Jessica Alba, Patrick Dempsey, Queen Latifah and Taylor Swift to name just a few. So to have them all on screen at once must be rather a treat, if you’re that way inclined.

Unfortunately, even the bright lights of superstardom cannot completely blind you to the fairly clunky and patronising way that diversity is handled in the film. One scene sees Ashton Kutcher’s character make quite shameless jokes about a Bulgarian woman’s accent. An Indian daughter is forced to work in her parents’ restaurant and is told by her mother that she’ll marry a ‘nice Indian boy’. Small people wander across the screen, immigrant jokes are made and in the screening I was in at least, people laughed when one character announced his homosexuality.

The film also shows Hollywood’s rather awkward relationship to sex. Sex chat lines are gasped at, but casual sex is not. Consenting teenagers can talk about having sex, but in the end must opt for abstinence. Of course, all of these problems are swept aside as the film swells to a triumphant, feel-good climax. Sadly, that climax doesn’t come until a good two hours after the first scene, making it one of the longest rom-coms of recent years.

If you want to spend your Valentine’s Day being dazzled by the bright lights and high gloss of a genuinely starry Hollywood romantic comedy, then this may well be the film for you. If it sounds like a schmaltzy, naff and at times ridiculous waste of time, then I would suggest you make other plans.