Love Happens

Once -- way back in 1973 -- there was a quirky, unforgettable movie called "Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing," directed by Alan Pakula ("The Parallax View"), a filmmaker who had a special, savvy way with complicated emotional journeys. In "Love," Pakula married unlikely, unexpected passion and terrible loss to gentle comedy. When he made us laugh at his imperfect -- even ludicrous -- lovers, we found ourselves embracing rather than denying the human condition. Mockery or saccharine sympathy didn't come into it. Why am I bringing up this "old" movie (just coming out on DVD, by the way)? Because hack helmer Brandon Camp should have studied it hard and long before making his DOA romantic comedy "Love Happens." He might have learned a thing or three about love and pain that's more than skin deep, the kind that can't be jerked for easy tears or laffs.

Burke Ryan (Aaron Eckhart) has parlayed his cherished wife's death by car accident into a best-selling self-help book -- along with packed seminars -- aimed at those wrestling with the loss of a loved one. Now he and his munchkin friend-agent (Dan Fogler) seem poised to take the franchise up a notch -- adding TV, DVDs, weight-loss programs to the lucrative mix. But Burke's life and work are all a lie: he's never laid his own grief to rest. In between sublimating his personal pain in helping others, Burke downs shots of vodka and stares into space.

And then, in the hallway of a Seattle hotel, in a lame-meet-cute moment, he runs into a pretty girl -- literally. Eloise (Jennifer Aniston) is a florist with a penchant for hooking up with disappointing men. You can tell right away that Eloise is cool 'cause she likes to scribble weird words like "quidnunc" and "poppysmic" on walls, under bland hotel artwork. When Burke makes his first move since his wife died, she cleverly uses sign language to blow him off. Then she suffers through a boring first date. Then she decides to take this broken soul under her wing.

There are no sparks, not the slightest sign of chemistry, between Eckhart and Aniston. They might be Hansel and Gretel wandering endlessly through tame thickets of feeling. Like the awful Thomas Kinkaid pastel shots of Eloise's perfectly adorable bungalow and view of Puget Sound, this romance has no energy, no edges. When our flower girl gifts her emotionally paralyzed prince with a super view of a distant stadium concert, courtesy of a telephone-truck crane, the two gaze into each other's eyes -- not with dawning affection, but rather wearily, like two grown-ups bemused at finding themselves in this sophomoric rom-com moment.

Sporadically, Eckhart's face morphs from manufactured feeling into expressions of authentic inner pain. The man is, after all, capable of good acting -- most successfully channeling bastards and sociopaths ("In the Company of Men," "Thank You for Smoking"). But in "Love Happens" there's nowhere for such authenticity to go. That's uncomfortably evident in Burke's self-help seminars, where a good deal of the film's action takes place. (The film's dramatic arc is so abbreviated -- good for maybe an hour-long TV show -- every subplot is stretched to maximum, often embarrassing effect.)

John Carroll Lynch, one of those instantly recognizable character actors ("Zodiac," "Gran Torino") who can always be depended upon to deliver the goods, plays a Montana contractor named Walter whose 12-year-old son died in a fall from some scaffolding. Drowning in grief and guilt, Walter's lost his marriage and job, any reason for living. Reluctantly signed up for Burke's seminar, this big, homely man looks like he's been beaten to a hopeless pulp -- and he resists Burke's increasingly desperate attempts to heal him.

This therapeutic dance is played like a parallel romance, meant to mirror Burke's own dilemma. But Lynch's commitment to his character makes us care about the big guy's plight, only to have it prolonged and trivialized (Walter refuses to walk on hot coals, Walter goes shopping at Home Depot) to the point of queasiness. Along with the grieving wife who made a cast of her husband's penis ("so that, you know, we could still be together"), Walter's just fodder for lame comedy and faux-feeling.

And by the time Burke's emotionally stripping then hugging it out with his estranged father-in-law on stage for the edification and applause of his seminarians and the suits who are buying his franchise, "Love Happens" has sunk about as low as dumb and dishonorable can go.

Finally, it's time to wonder what Aniston is doing in the movies. There's no denying that the camera grooves on the flawless planes of this actress's face, her startlingly blue eyes, the promise of intelligence and empathy. And, in scene after scene, Aniston deliberately projects such clarity of expression, you're sure that something dramatically meaningful is about to happen. But nothing does. It's enough that she should give you The Look. Soul seems to be beyond her grasp.

But then that's true of "Love Happens" as well.

Also: In Defense of Jennifer Aniston

Kathleen Murphy currently reviews films for Seattle's Queen Anne News and writes essays on film for Steadycam magazine. A frequent speaker on film, Murphy has contributed numerous essays to magazines (Film Comment, the Village Voice, Film West, Newsweek-Japan), books ("Best American Movie Writing of 1998," "Women and Cinema," "The Myth of the West") and Web sites (Amazon.com, Cinemania.com, Reel.com). Once upon a time, in another life, she wrote speeches for Bill Clinton, Jack Lemmon, Harrison Ford, Joe Pesci, Robert De Niro, Art Garfunkel and Diana Ross.