IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.
Released: 11th May
Seen: 30th August
Celine Dion is arguably one of the world’s best singers, even if you don’t enjoy her music it’s hard to deny the raw power of her voice. She was one of the biggest artists in the 90s for a reason and has managed to maintain a huge fanbase for almost 40 years because when she’s in her element there are few who could compare. What’s kind of surprising is that despite her voice accompanying some of the biggest films of all time, she’s done very little on-camera work in the film world. Before now it’s been a couple of cameos in TV shows and singing backup for Miss Piggy in Muppets Most Wanted, that’s kind of been it until Love Again came along and said “What if we took our cute little romcom and made it have several scenes dedicated to exclaiming how great Celine Dion is?”
Love Again begins with recent kinda-widow Mira Ray (Priyanka Chopra Jonas) who is still dealing with the sudden loss of her boyfriend (who had apparently planned on asking her to marry him, hence the ‘kinda-widow’). One of the coping mechanisms that she tries to use in order to deal with her grief is to text her former partner’s old phone number. The problem is that that phone number has already been reassigned to someone else, A writer named Rob Burns (Sam Heughan) starts receiving these strange texts and instead of just texting back ‘Hey, wrong number’ starts getting interested in the person texting him and tries to find who it is so he can meet them in person and eventually begin a relationship because this is a rom-com, the rom has to come in somewhere… Also, Rob is randomly interviewing Celine Dion and will keep asking her for advice like she’s some kind of guru.
In terms of ‘reasons for a couple to get together’, texts meant for a dead boyfriend is certainly an interesting one (Though not original, this is actually a remake of a German film called SMS für Dich) and allows for some fairly fun moments for everyone concerned. There’s a kind of innocent charm to seeing Mira sneaking off to send a text to her former partner only to have Rob get it and be let in on some secret thought that he can adapt to, coupled with a darkness of someone’s coping mechanism being used in a way they didn’t plan for. It actually creates some kind of tension, there’s a real sense that once this is found out that it’ll change things and with good reason, the “Liar revealed” plot is often stupid because the lie is harmless but this feels like it’s actually personal enough to give some weight to the story.
It also really helps that Priyanka Chopra Jonas is just a fantastic actress who has enough raw star power to make this film fun to watch, even dragging in her real-life husband Nick Jonas for a cheesy little cameo (sidebar, someone makes a romance film with Priyanka and Nick as the leads, even with Nick playing an absolute jerk their chemistry is undeniable and there needs to be a film with them in the leads, that needs to exist). Priyanka actually manages to make every little nuance work, the underlying grief that she deals with throughout the whole movie is always just bubbling under the surface and she really sells it. Sam Heughan is also just charming enough to work as the lead male of this relatively safe romcom, managing to make the audience buy why someone might fall for him in this strange circumstance.
Turns out the main problem with Love Again ends up being the thing that makes it somewhat stand out from other rom-coms… There’s just no reason Celine Dion needs to be in this. Every time they bring her into the film it just feels out of place, not only just in terms of the story being told but even in the physical frame it feels like they digitally added her in afterward just because. She’s not even getting to do anything fun or interesting, we’ve seen Celine show off some decent comedy chops before because she understands how people perceive her and plays into it but this just doesn’t do that, instead they choose to have everyone deify her which is nowhere near as interesting as the film thinks it is. Maybe if she interacted with more of the cast or got to actually be more involved in the central plot it might work but it just doesn’t, she’s a weird detour that isn’t even fun.
Even if they did deal with the Celine problem though, the film would just barely leap to average quality. It’s not like it’s bad, even in the most pointless scene there’s still a mild charm to the things going on but it never really rises above that. The jokes are fine, cute enough that it can get a tiny chuckle out and some of the more romance-heavy scenes are sweet enough that it works but it’s not quotable, it’s not particularly memorable and not so unique that it stands out. Even a hardcore Celine Dion fan wouldn’t be that well served by it because she’s not doing much worth seeing. It’s background noise with good enough performances to maybe grab some attention every now and then, but not much and not enough to really recommend it.
Love Again ends up fitting neatly in that category of films that can mostly be described with “It exists”, it’s not going to hurt anyone with its presence but it’s not going to excite anyone either. It’s there, it’s a way to kill an hour and a half with minimal effort or impact. It’s fair to say that if I ever try to think about this movie again, it won’t be coming back to me at all.
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