A Lot Like Love opens with two young adults setting their eyes on one another for the first time.  Here it is Oliver and Emily whose eyes connect for the first time at the Los Angeles airport, but shy Oliver does not step up to the plate when the opportunity arises.  However, Emily grabs the opportunity to get to know Oliver through a more controversial method during the flight, which leads them into a seven year on and off relationship.

During these seven years they bump into each other by choice, as they choose the opportunity to see the other.  Yet, they separate before things get serious, and each time they reason with themselves to come to the conclusion that they cannot remain together.  However, it is obvious from the first shot of the film that they will end up together.

The director Nigel Cole whom many recognize from the terrific British films Saving Grace (2000) and Calendar Girls (2003) creates a film that this time does not reach the heights of his previous film.  The shortcomings seems to rest with the unoriginal script, which delivers a story that heavily resembles with Richard Linklater’s brilliant Before Sunrise (1994) and Before Sunset (2004).  In Linklater’s films, a man meets a woman on a train while they end up spending a day together in Vienna, Austria, and then ten years later reunite in Paris.  Linklater’s films are much more personal and thoughtful compared to the shallow storyline in A Lot Like Love.  Yet, Cole creates a story that is both amusing and warm, but the performances by the leads are uneven and do not reach the necessary peaks in order to deliver a great film.  In the end, A Lot Like Love will entertain, but not leave the audience with a significant cinematic tale.

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USA

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