Love Rosie
Director: Christian Ditter
Starring: Sam Claflin, Lily Collins, Suki Waterhouse
102 mins; Class 15;
KRS Releasing Ltd
Love Rosie is a sweet, if unmemorable, British romantic comedy starring up-and-comers Lily Collins and Sam Claflin as best friends Rosie and Alex, who have known each other from the age of five.
The film explores their relationship from childhood to young adulthood as they each move away from home, become involved with other people and deal with unwanted pregnancies, marriages and all that life throws at them. All the while they wonder whether they were actually just made for each other all this time.
Like many a film of this ilk, Love Rosie cannot avoid some of the pitfalls associated with the genre and what works against it is its inevitable outcome.
Cannot avoid some pitfalls
There are no prizes for guessing how this one will pan out. The film’s running time concerns itself for the most part with the many to-ings and fro-ings as Rosie and Alex go on to lead their separate lives.
The ‘can a man and a woman be best friends without getting involved romantically’ question has been tackled, of course, in that stalwart of rom-coms When Harry Met Sally.
The premise does come to mind in Love Rosie, yet to its credit, it attempts a different tack by building on the long-gestating friendship between the two protagonists, and this is the film’s strength.
Collins and Claflin are more than just pretty faces, and their performances are blessed with warmth, pathos and humour. The couple share some sizzling chemistry and convince in all aspects even as they age from 18 to 30.
From the moments of their childhood at play to the first drunken and quickly-forgotten first kiss they share, and all their trials and tribulations, the whole trots on good-naturedly enough to while away the time.
They make the heart-twinging moments fuzzy enough while the whole offers a couple of hearty laugh-out-loud moments.